


I'll See You Yesterday

by danisnopeonfire



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Angst, Chaptered, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Getting Together, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Phanfiction, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-06-17 19:46:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15468684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danisnopeonfire/pseuds/danisnopeonfire
Summary: In a last-ditch effort to save his relationship, Dan undergoes marriage counselling. But he gets more than he bargained for when his counsellor gives him new reasons to worry.





	1. One

Seven days ago, Dan had promised his future self that he wouldn't enter this room again wearing a suit.

But seven days can be a long time for a person with a busy schedule and a serious case of commitment issues, and his past self obviously didn't have enough sense to realise that there wouldn't be time for a quick costume-change in the measly fifteen minutes between leaving work and fleeing to make it to counselling.

He's working on it.

"He came home late every night this week." There's an edge of bitterness to Amber's voice that's almost as thick as the humidity in the air. Dan brings a hand to his shirt collar and peels it away from his skin to allow his torso to breathe. "His breath smelled of alcohol every time."

Their counsellor looks down at her notes but she doesn't write anything down. There isn't anything written down at all. Amber's fast succession of words hasn't given her a chance.

She meets Amber's gaze as if Dan isn't even in the room. "And this is unusual behaviour for Dan?"

"Well, I should hope so." Amber leans forwards slightly, breathless from her continuous flow of sentences. "He's not usually a big drinker. I can tell when he's had even a sip of alcohol."

Dan looks down at his bitten fingernails and sinks further into the leather sofa. If he were stupid, he would cast a gaze over to the clock to find out how much longer he has to endure this. But his knowledge _not_ to do that is a testament to his experience of living with Amber and her hawk-like tendencies. Almost everything is an offence to her.

"Right." Their counsellor writes something down at last. Her scribbling seems to carry on for a moment too long. "Sounds like there could be a possible drinking problem here."

Dan looks up for the first time, his heat-induced predicament suddenly forgotten. "What?"

"Oh, he talks." Amber rolls her eyes but she looks relieved. "Did that catch your attention?"

"A drinking problem?" Dan repeats the words he heard only seconds ago. "You can't possibly be serious."

Dr Elliot, their trusty relationship counsellor of four months, meets his gaze imploringly. She's not your usual, run-of-the-mill shrink; her tactics are a little closer to home. By using the power of artificial comfort, she's able to ease out your biggest secrets like a magazine's most appreciated agony aunt. She has a knack for gaining people's complete trust, just by taking on the roll of a mother figure. And when that doesn't work, like it hasn't worked with Dan, she turns to her second most effective strategy: guilt.

"Dan," she says slowly, almost patronisingly. "You know that in order for this to work, you need to be as honest with each other as possible. And you know that in order to be honest with each _other_ , you need to be honest with _yourselves_ , too."

Dan doesn't reply because he can't think of what to say. Dr Elliot seems to understand. She eyes the way he descends into a mortifying fit of fidgeting.

"You know what I'm hinting at, don't you?" she continues softly. "If you think your drinking habits are out of the ordinary at the moment, you need to say."

Dan lets out a slow, quiet breath through his nose. "You've got the wrong idea. Honestly, I've not been—"

" _Please_ , Dan," Amber interjects. "You can't go on like this. _We_ can't go on like this."

The beseeching tone in his wife's voice touches somewhere inside of him and he meets her gaze. There's a melancholy look about her eyes; they're diluted with something that runs much deeper than sadness. He's suddenly consumed by guilt.

He thinks about the question at hand again: does he have a drinking problem? Every day after work, with the exception of Fridays when he has counselling, he stops off at the pub near the train station for three pints of beer. He's never exceeded that limit, but is it enough to classify as a _problem_? He certainly doesn't drink to get drunk. He's never seen the point of wishing for a hangover the next day, just for the sake of a couple hours of memory-loss. Dan simply drinks to pass the time away, knowing that it's easier to sit alone in a pub for a couple hours, drinking his beer so slowly that it turns warm and piss-like, than going home and arguing with Amber until the next morning.

When he thinks about it like that, it sounds very much like a coping mechanism, and he's read somewhere that the number one reason people succumb to alcohol is to cope with something.

Shit.

"Maybe I—" Dan's voice is too weak  when he tries to talk, so he coughs and starts again. "I guess I _have_ been a little out of sorts recently."

He's not exactly sure what he means by that, but he must have said the right thing because Amber's smile travels all the way up to her eyes. She reaches out her hand to rest it on Dan's.

"I'm proud of you," she whispers sincerely.

Dan tries, he really does, to match her smile, but something about his choice of words doesn't feel quite right. Instead, he settles for turning his hand around in Amber's and lacing their fingers together.

"That's really great, Dan," Dr Elliot tells him. "To admit you're not coping is such a powerful thing to do. I think you're really beginning to find your way."

Dan smiles at her in what he hopes is a forthcoming way. "So where do we go from here? I presume this means we're making progress, right?" He tries hard to disguise the rising hopefulness in his voice.

"Well, of course it does..." Dr Elliot says slowly. She sifts through the folder on her lap until she produces a small leaflet. "But progress isn't progress unless you maintain it."

She hands him the leaflet and he looks down at it. His lips twist into an uneasy frown.

"Alcoholics Anonymous?" he reads aloud. "You really think this is necessary?"

"It's not as daunting as it sounds, I promise," Dr Elliot assures quickly. "I believe you could really benefit from this, Dan. Surrounding yourself with other people who know what you're going through is often much better than speaking to a professional. Besides, the guy who runs the session is going to be your new counsellor. It'll give you a chance to meet him before next Friday."

Dan's incredulity grows even more. "We're getting a new counsellor?"

"She told us that last week, Dan," Amber cuts in with a sigh. "Weren't you listening?"

Dr Elliot looks between them with a careful smile.

"I'm resigning from my position next week, which means you'll be taken on by a new professional. His name's Dr Lester and he certainly knows what he's doing." She observes the way Dan chews tightly on his lip. "You'll be in safe hands, I promise."

Amber looks enthusiastic as she smiles and says, "Thank you so much for everything you've done."

Dan feels obliged to thank her too, but his mind is swamped. He just settles with a feigned smile and an over-exaggerated nod. It entails _something_ , but he's not exactly sure what.

 

Sunday, the day of Dan's first Alcoholics Anonymous session, comes around far too quickly.

Although he's reluctant to admit it, he's already feeling apprehensive. He and Amber didn't argue once when they got home from their session with Dr Elliot on Friday, and she even rested her head on his shoulder in the taxi home—an act of affection she usually avoids like the plague. It had been nice, a real reminder of what they used to have and what Dan wants to get back, but he still can't shake the feeling that Amber's affection is founded on pity. Her poor husband relies on _alcohol_ to get by, so surely there must be some guilt there.

Saturday had been a real eye-opener. Amber had, by the process of complete spontaneity, invited her parents round for lunch. Things had been nice, just like they usually are when Dan makes an effort to act functional, until Amber declared that she had an announcement. Dan nearly choked on his food when she told her parents about his 'alcohol problem', and the stares of pity he received in response were far worse than any reactions of contempt.

The pitiful reactions had turned more positive when Amber told them of the AA group Dan was going to be starting (she had described it as a type of 'group therapy' that would help him to 'engage with other sufferers'), and her dad had even offered to drive Dan there.

And that, unfortunately, leads him to where he is right now: sitting in the passenger seat of Amber's dad's Mini Cooper outside of the local community centre.

"We're a few minutes early," Gordon says with a pointed glance to his wristwatch. "Do you want me to walk inside with you?"

"No." Dan only realises how abrupt his tone sounds after the word has left his mouth. He sits up straight and shakes his head with vigour. "It's okay. I should probably just suck it up and do this alone."

Gordon is suddenly chuckling to himself. "It's really funny, you know."

"What is?" Dan asks, turning to face him.

"I always imagined that if I ever had to drive someone to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, it would be our Amber. You were the last person I suspected."

Dan finds himself blushing suddenly. "You've given this situation thought before?"

"Only briefly," he says. "Amber always had a taste for dangerous things when she was younger. I always thought ' _What if?_ ' and then imagined this exact situation, only with her sitting next to me instead of you."

Dan takes a moment to think about that. It's difficult to imagine Amber in such a toxic environment, surrounded by equally toxic people. She's hardly the height of shyness, which is one of the things Dan loves most about her, but she definitely wouldn't cope in a room filled with alcoholics. And the more Dan thinks about it, the more he realises that _he's_ not going to cope either.

Suddenly, his face feels a lot hotter as he becomes more aware of the situation. How the _hell_ is he going to cope?

"Yeah, no. Somehow I can't imagine Amber in my shoes right now."

Gordon makes a noise of agreement and then exclaims, as if he's only just remembered why they're here, "Oh! You should probably get going. You don't want to be late and make a bad impression on your first day."

Dan wonders if being late actually counts as making a 'bad impression' when alcoholics and drug-addicts are concerned. He's pretty sure that punctuality isn't very high on the priority list for these kinds of meetings.

"Thanks for the lift." Dan unclips his seatbelt and climbs out of the car. Before he closes the door behind him, he adds, "I can get a taxi back home, so you don't need to trouble yourself by coming back here to get me."

Gordon looks hesitant. "You sure?"

"Not really." Dan offers him a nervous smile. "But I think I’ll have to be."

 

Cleanliness is the _last_ thing Dan expects to be greeted with upon entering the hall where his AA meeting is being held, but as he cranes his neck through the door and peers through to make sure he's at the right place, he's overwhelmed by the stench of disinfectant and something akin to bleach.

Under the circumstances, he can't tell if that's a good thing or not.

In the centre of the room, aligned almost tantalisingly, is a medium-sized circle of chairs. Dan has to try his best to bite back a laugh because they look as though they've been arranged to the exact inch. Suddenly, he feels out of place but for completely different reasons.

"Hello?"

Dan jumps and grips on to the door when a voice from behind him interrupts his thoughts. When he turns around to see who's there, he's met with the sight of a young man, probably similar to him in age, peering at him curiously.

"Um..." Dan realises that his knuckles are starting to turn white from gripping the door so tightly. He lets go with a nervous chuckle. "I'm looking for the Alcoholics Anonymous group?"

It feels weird saying it out loud. This is the first time he's actually allowed himself to say it, to think about it of his _own_ accord rather than listening to Amber talk about it, and it's all because he's been forced to. Suddenly he wishes he'd skipped this. It would have been so _easy_ just to sneak off to the pub and—

Wait...

The other man's eyes light up into a smile and he starts to walk towards Dan.

"This is the place. You're a bit early?"

Dan blushes. "Didn't the leaflet say 7?"

"7:30," the man corrects kindly. Upon closer inspection, his hair is a shocking shade of black. Dan had once seen somewhere a chart that showed all the different shades of black, and he remembers dismissing it as ridiculous because they all just looked the same. He wonders briefly which shade belongs to the man in front of him.

"I can go..."

"No, no!" The man bustles past him with a smile, and Dan watches on carefully as he enters the room and begins moving the chairs around. "You're already here now. You can help me sort these chairs out."

Dan wonders what could possibly need 'sorting out' with the chairs because they're already in a perfect circle, but he doesn't bother asking questions and immediately starts copying what the other man is doing. He just seems to be picking up chairs and moving them slightly so that they're not parallel to one another.

"I'm Phil," the guy says suddenly from the other side of the room. He's now standing at a small table and laying out some leaflets and posters. "You're new here."

"Yeah." Dan scratches the back of his neck pensively. The other guy—Phil—quirks his eyebrows up with a smirk when he notices the slight tremor in Dan's voice. Dan breathes out uneasily. "My wife suggested that I come here. I don't really...I've never really _been_ to something like this."

"Don't worry." Phil's smirk turns into a friendly smile as he scans his gaze over Dan's face, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “You’re probably going to hate it, I won’t lie, but you’ll adjust."

Dan smiles because he doesn't really know what he should say in response to that. He sincerely hopes that Phil's right, because if Amber's persistence is anything to go by, he's going to be coming to these meetings quite a lot.


	2. Two

"I can pinpoint exactly when it all started. My girlfriend...she left me. Broke up with me by text and then sent her new boyfriend round to my house to collect her stuff. I've never been so _mad_ in my life. I must have got through a whole bottle of Scotch that night. I had to have my stomach pumped and everything. It was awful, but now I'm hooked..."

Dan's noticed that there is an unspoken agreement among the members of the AA club. Everyone around the room (there are ten members now, including Dan and Phil) is hyperaware of everyone else's predicaments, but no one says anything. It's almost as though judging someone else for their "problems" is an open invitation for them to mock you about yours. So, understandably, Dan has remained silent throughout the whole session.

"It's really great that you're being so honest, Matthew," Phil says in response to a chubby, red-haired guy's rant about his girlfriend. "I think everyone in this room can learn something from your bravery. Would anyone like to share their story next?"

The unmistakable sound of people shifting in their seats fills Dan's ears. He stares down at his lap with a gaze that could probably cut straight through his thighs. His hands have been sweating since the session started, and his body isn't giving any signs of calming down soon. The uncomfortable silence seems to drag on for a moment too long, so Dan slowly peers up at Phil.

Crucial mistake.

His entire world screeches to a halt when he notices that Phil's steady gaze is planted on him, cutting him up with a smile. His head is tilted in the same observing way.

"Would you like to go next?" Phil asks politely, in that tentative yet probing way that only counsellors can master. "I didn't quite catch your name earlier."

Dan can physically feel the exact moment in which all of the blood in his body migrates to his face, and it's all he can do to remain neutral and not let the ringing in his ears escape through his mouth.

"I'm Dan," he mumbles robotically, _painfully_ , as though his voice box has been filled with sand and each word he utters is cutting up his innards. As he clears his throat, he's vaguely aware of everyone in the room murmuring 'Hi, Dan'. "I'm here because, I—"

Now that he's being forced to think about it properly, he doesn't really understand _why_ he's here. Dr Elliot says it's because he's making progress; he's finally starting to come to terms with his problems, completely embracing his inhibitions. Amber says he's doing it for love.  She's convinced that every attendance mark Dan gains from this session is another step towards their happy ending; she says he's _brave_ . But as Dan sits here with every bone in his body shaking and knocking together like he's about to speak in a school assembly, he feels anything _but_ brave. He's helpless right now, completely paralysed and at the total mercy of everyone else in the room. _Fuck_ . They're all looking at him as though he's just stripped naked and ran around the room. What's happened to his voice? Why can't he fucking _talk_?

Suddenly, in a bout of unorthodox and completely unexpected telepathy, Phil is speaking up.

"We're glad to have you here, Dan," he says, and Dan almost tears up with gratitude. The guy just threw him a lifeline and he's more than ready to grab it with both hands. "Who would like to go next?"

It doesn't slip Dan's attention that Phil sends him small side-glances for the rest of the session.

 

"How did it go?" Amber's voice is neither absent nor engaging as she looks up at Dan from the couch. He drops his bag onto the floor and toes off his shoes with a shrug, collapsing onto the couch next to her but leaving a generous amount of space between them. "Did it help?

She's clutching a steaming mug of coffee and Dan eyes it enviously. He wishes that he could just sneak off to the kitchen and make himself a cup of something warm instead of having this conversation.

"It was okay," he mumbles. It's not a lie, but it's not entirely the truth. It was just _okay_. He managed to survive it, didn't he? The fact that he's not lying face-first on his bedroom carpet is a testament to that.

"Okay’? Can I get an expansion on ‘okay’?” Amber places her drink down on the coffee table with a frown. She looks carefully at him for a few moments, studying his face as though she's going to be tested on it and needs to remember all the important details. Tired. Sad. Deflated. Dan wonders whether she sees those things, whether she's noticed that the bags under his eyes have been steadily deepening in colour.

Dan arches his back to straighten out the stiff muscles in his shoulders, before drooping back into the couch. He tilts his head to the side to gaze at her. She's staring back impatiently.

"It was somewhat tolerable," he says, breathing out. "Manageable."

"Jesus, Dan," Amber exasperates. The speed with which she stands up from the couch makes him flinch. She stares down at him. "Would it kill you to just _talk_ to me sometimes? These counselling sessions won't mean shit if you keep supplying me with one-word answers."

"Sorry." Dan's response is too quick and feels like plastic on his tongue.

"I'm going to bed," she says dismissively, shrugging him off. "I only stayed up to let you know that I left you some dinner. It's in the microwave."

He watches on in silence as she leaves the room and turns out the light, blanketing him in darkness. He's not sure how long he stays there after that—minutes, maybe? Hours?—but he continues to sit in the silent room until his face starts aching with fatigue and his throat is burning from yawning so much.

When he gets into bed that night and kisses Amber's shoulder, he tries to ignore the way his lips feel cold.

 

Dan notices that the week following his first AA meeting seems to act as a bridge leading up to the next one. A shaky, temperamental  bridge that seems hell-bent on chucking him off. All he can think about, all he can _concentrate_ on, is how much he doesn't want to go. It's gotten to the point where he's been amalgamating a mental list of excuses to give to Amber for why he can't go, and he's come dangerously close to being fired because of it.

"Dan? A word in my office?"

The voice of Dan's boss comes as more of a shock to him than it probably should. He looks up slowly from where he had been picking at his fingernails—since when had he developed that habit?—and notices that everyone in the room has looked up from their computers to stare at him. He feels like a young schoolboy who's just been caught doing something deviant.

It occurs to him, as he walks past every staring face, that he's never really done a 'walk of shame' before. He's pretty sure he can feel his face melting with how much he’s blushing as he walks towards his boss's office.

"Dan, where's the final draft for Mrs Porter's newsletter?"

It's at this moment precisely that Dan regrets every single one of his life choices because, fuck, working in a publishing office is _hard_. Throughout his whole life, he's always had a personal vendetta against deadlines and anything else that requires him to do a large amount of work in a short amount of time. Why he decided to become an editor is beyond him.

"I'm still working on it," he says quietly. He can only hope that his voice doesn't sound as curt as he feels.

"I needed it in this morning." His boss closes the office door behind them and looks at Dan deeply. "You've known about this deadline for weeks, Dan. Why are you slacking so suddenly?"

He almost flinches at that. He's not slacking _,_ is he? He'll be the first to admit that he's not the most efficient worker and probably does most of his work at the last minute, but he always gets it done on time. He's not a _slacker_. In school, he was always one of those annoying students who could turn up to any exam and do well without revising, and it was enough to make even the most amiable of people hate his guts. But he's never been a slacker.

"It kind of...slipped my mind?" He is strikingly aware of how meek his voice sounds, but he doesn't have the heart to change it.

"You know that's not good enough." His boss pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, looking as though he could lose his shit at any moment. Honestly, Dan can empathise with the feeling. He looks up at Dan with an unmoving expression. "How do you expect to keep your job if you can't keep up with deadlines?"

Dan's heartbeat picks up and he's pretty sure his face looks deathly white. "I can work overtime. I'll—I'll stay behind tonight and finish it. It'll be on your desk first thing tomorrow."

He hates how desperate and utterly imploring he sounds right now, but these are the hoops he has to jump through. He can't bear to think about what Amber would do if he lost his job; he's pretty sure her own anger would consume her, and he really doesn't want to be a witness of that. Or worse, she'd just be disappointed. The more Dan thinks about it, the more he realises that the second option would be much, _much_ worse. Disappointing Amber has become a frequent trait in his personality, a specialised and separate default system, and he's not sure how much more she can take.

His boss nods curtly. "Good. I think that's the least you can do."

And so that's what he does. He slaves away at his computer, reading and picking apart Mrs Porter’s riveting gardening newsletter until the words become blurry and his eyes are watering, and by the time he's finished, he's the only one left in the room. As he's leaving the silent office building at—he checks the time on his watch— _shit,_ 10.22pm, he finds it a convenient time to question his profession. He literally gets paid to be pedantic, to scrutinise other people's work and pick it apart until it's just a shell of what it once was. The job doesn't really breach his moral compass, because he's well aware of how highly sought after editors are to aspiring writers, but something about what it entails doesn't sit well with him.

Nothing about Dan's personality is pedantic. He finds it uncomfortable when people fuss over trivial things, like the position of a painting on a wall or the volume on the TV. Yet, when it comes to grammatical laws, he's willing to scrutinise a script to within an inch of its life. The whole thing makes him think of Phil and what happened when he first met him. How the guy had literally moved the chairs in the AA hall so that they weren't in a perfect circle. Dan's laughing to himself suddenly as he tries to think of an adjective to describe that kind of behaviour. His mind just keeps drawing up blanks. _Is_ there such a word? If there is, he's too tired to think of one.

When he arrives at the entrance of the train station, it almost comes as a shock to him to see the pub he regularly visits. In his plight of tiredness and unwanted overtime, he had completely forgotten that this is usually the point in which he will turn left, enter the pub, and have a drink. But he usually does that a _lot_ earlier, and right now he's already definitely late home. Amber has probably driven herself into the bottom of the nearest cemetery with worry by now; he dreads to think about the argument that's waiting for him at home.

His poor, poor neighbours...

With a longing look at the pub, Dan marches past it and heads straight to his train stand. If he's going to face Amber's wrath, he might as well take it with dignity. And absolute sobriety.

 

On the train home, he realises that it is indeed possible for humans to become so tired that they stop thinking altogether, and he spends the entire journey staring out of the window in an intangible state between consciousness and unconsciousness.

It's only when he's unlocking his front door and immediately being greeted with the sight of Amber crying on the stairs does he realise that he should have spent his time more productively. He hasn't even prepared himself for how he's going to handle her tonight; he's about 97% sure that his body will just give in to the ache of tiredness halfway through her shouting at him and collapse somewhere. Preferably his bed.

"Hello." Dan drops his bag by the door and starts taking off his shoes.

Amber's gaping at him. Her mouth is literally wide open and Dan reckons her jaw could dislocate at any moment and fall to the ground. She seems to take a moment to recompose herself, sitting up straight and wrapping her robe tighter around her body.

"Hello?" she repeats. Her voice is quiet at first, all raspy and exhausted and pained, and Dan winces as he tries to come to terms with his fate. "You come home five hours late, don't even bother to call or text me, and all you can say is _hello_?"

It suddenly dawns on him that Amber has probably tried to contact him many times. It never even occurred to him to check his phone.

"I know, I'm sorry," he says, pulling off his coat and hanging it up. He hopes the nonchalance of his actions will restore some of the peace. "I had to stay back at the office to catch up on some work. I lost track of time."

Amber stands up suddenly. "You're lying! You went to the pub again, didn't you?! How stupid do you think I am?"

"I didn't!" Dan almost feels offended by Amber's accusations, because he really _didn't_ go to the pub. But then he remembers that Amber's got every reason not to believe him; it's not like it would be his first offence. Suddenly he wishes he'd paid more attention to _The Boy Who Cried Wolf_ fable when he was a kid. Maybe then he wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe then he'd be _trusted_.

"How can you expect me to believe you, Dan?" Amber's voice takes a melancholy turn. Dan feels his insides twisting with guilt. "How?"

"I promise you," he says, taking a step towards her. She seems to recoil like a provoked rattlesnake, shaking her head and conjuring up something defensive to spit at him, but Dan just continues walking until he's standing directly in front of her. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her into his chest. At first it's all punches and shoves and fists as she protests by thrashing against him and screaming something unintelligible, but eventually her screams start to dissipate into sobs and she's crying into his neck, hiccupping desperately.

Dan's not sure how long they stand there, but when he finally crawls into bed that night, sleep has never come to him so fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty to everyone who has read/left kudos on this so far!


	3. Three

Amber seems to take to Phil instantly.

It's both nice and awful for Dan to watch her being so happy, to see her eyes gleaming as she listens to Phil speak. On one hand, it's nice to see her spark again because, _damn_ , Dan's missed seeing that. But on the other hand, Dan can't help but be reminded of how he was probably the one who took that spark away from her in the first place, and how the only reason he's seeing it again is because of someone else. He feels like he's watching something he shouldn’t.

It hurts like crazy, but he does his best impression of a smile in their counselling session and answers all of Phil's questions.

"So Dan, how did you find your first AA meeting? Did it help?"

He’s struggling to take Phil seriously in this kind of environment. After months and months of relationship counselling, he's conditioned himself to associate this room with Dr Elliot. He can't seem to wrap his head around the idea of someone else sitting in her chair. Phil doesn't quite look like he belongs here; he looks too young and clueless. Too naive.

"It was okay, I guess," Dan supplies, and Amber runs her thumb over the back of his hand. He can feel the length of her thumbnail scratching him lightly and repeatedly on one section of his skin. "I was mostly just trying to figure out what was going on, but it was alright."

Phil chuckles softly, all positive and cheery and patient.

"It definitely takes a bit of getting used to."

Dan swallows back a sigh. "Yeah."

"Actually, this is something I wanted to talk about," Amber interjects, suddenly letting go of Dan's hand and leaning forward. "Dan came home late again last night. He promised me he hadn't been drinking, but I'm finding it difficult to believe him."

There's a brief moment in which Dan's stomach drops somewhere between his ankles. He tries to conceal his surprise with a small coughing fit, but Phil just sends him a funny look.

"Are you alright, Dan?"

Dan waves him off in what he hopes is a nonchalant way. "I'm fine. I think my throat's just a bit dry."

Phil raises an eyebrow and Amber sighs sadly.

"And why did you come home late?" Phil directs the question to him with so much carefulness and patience, like he's trying to undress the situation slowly. Dan notices that the timbre of his voice has been carefully selected to sound soft and forthcoming—tentative. Like he's noticed the tiny sticks of TNT surrounding Dan's mind and is determined to circumnavigate them.

It works, apparently, because Dan finds himself looking up and meeting Phil's gaze.

"I had to work late to catch up on some deadlines. I've already explained this to her."

"I want to believe him," Amber cuts in. She's looking at Phil beseechingly, as though he is the last mouthpiece on earth that can connect her to Dan's secrets. She turns to Dan. "I _do_ . But you make it so goddamn difficult, Dan. You don't _talk_ to me."

Dan flinches away at that. He's become more than acquainted with Amber's emotional outbursts, but he's never seen her express them so _publicly_. All of their arguments are usually saved for when they get home, completely sealed behind closed doors. This is the first time Amber has ever let the true nature of their problems venture outside.

Amber stares at him for a few moments. Dan tries his best to mirror the passion in her eyes, to silently scream at her that _yes, I want this to work too! I want to get back the six years of marriage that we’ve thrown away! I want to get back the future we’re losing more and more each day!_ But he's tongue-tied. He's always tongue-tied where Amber is concerned. When she realises that he's not going to say anything, she almost screams.

"See! You're _still_ not talking! How do you expect this to work if you're not going to tell me what you're thinking?"

Her hysteria is evident in the way she burrows her head in her hands. Dan wants to comfort her, wants to rub a hand over her back or do _something_ , but he knows it would all be in vain. He's fucked up spectacularly. _Again_.

How does he always manage to cause so much heartbreak with so few words?

When he looks up desperately, Phil is staring at him. There is a careful, pitiful smile twisting his lips upwards, and Dan wonders why he hasn't kicked him out of his office yet, why he hasn't chased him down the street. _He's the biggest dick in the world right now_.

After a few agonising minutes, Amber sits up and breathes out deeply. "Can we finish early today?"

Phil nods but his eyes don't once stray from Dan's. Dan finds himself swallowing thickly as he bows his head under the gaze, trying to cool his reddening cheeks. He can feel his mouth salivating as he tries to swallow down the bile that's rising in his throat.

"I'm going to walk home," Amber announces suddenly. Dan turns to her in confusion. "You can get a cab without me."

"But it'll take you at least an hour," he points out.

Amber chuckles curtly, all dry and croaky. "I think I need the fresh air."

"At least take my jacket?"                         

She’s about to protest, wetting her lips with the struggle not to retort with something immediately, but then she looks at her bare arms and nods. "Alright."

Dan shrugs off the garment immediately and stands up to give it to her. She stands head and shoulders shorter than him and suddenly Dan is overcome with the urge to hug her, to apologise profusely and ask her to ride home with him. He doesn't want to make things more difficult for them, but he feels like he's constantly two paces behind Amber’s thoughts, and _ten_ paces behind his own, and he just can't keep up. He wants to give Amber the answers she's craving, but how can he do that when he doesn't know them himself?

He's not at all surprised when Amber marches out of the room without a goodbye, and he accepts the comforting hand that Phil places on his shoulder with a sigh.

"I definitely deserved that."

Phil smiles at him. "I'm sure she'll calm down. She just needs time to think about everything that's happening."

Dan turns to him with a snort. He can't really explain why Phil's steady and collected demeanour is calming to him, but it is. The desire to curl up under his therapist's desk and cry is gradually depleting.

" _God._ " Dan breathes his way through a chuckle as he looks over Phil's face, studies the slow patience in his eyes and the hint of a smirk gracing his lips. Like he's _waiting_ for something to happen. "You sound like such a therapist right now."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"I guess." Dan shrugs idly, barely preventing a sigh. "I just think I'd prefer some friendly advice right now. You know, something that’s not out of a textbook."

There's a small pause. A puncture in the stichomythia.

"Usually, my idea of 'friendly advice' would be to take you to the nearest pub and make you drown your sorrows. But under the circumstances..." Phil scratches the back of his neck with a small grin.

Dan has to laugh at that. The irony is painful, almost unbearably so, but Phil's grin is kind of really contagious. It carries something slow and patient. Like he's permanently amused at something. Dan aches to know what he’s thinking.

"You don't understand how much I wish I could take you up on that offer," Dan tells him.

Phil frowns. "It wasn't actually an offer. I've only just got this job. I'd like to keep it for at least a month, thank you very much."

Dan smiles again. He knows he's just wasting time before he inevitably has to go home and wait for Amber, but there's no harm in getting to know his therapist a little better, right? There’s no shame in getting his money’s worth.

"However," Phil says somewhere in the lull in their conversation. "I may not be able to endorse alcohol, but I know a great coffee shop about ten minutes away from here. Real quaint. You can sob your heart out over a macchiato. No textbooks allowed."

Dan cocks his head to the side with a frown, but it only lasts seconds before he's smiling, and eyeing the clock in the corner of the room. He reckons he's got just under an hour to spare before Amber will be home. Phil seems to catch on to his train of thought.

"Don't worry." He smiles understandingly. "I'll get you home before Amber becomes too worried."

There are a few more silent moments, and another grin from Phil, and then Dan's sold.

 

It's only when he's sitting at the back of a small, cosy room with his fingers clasped around a steaming mug of coffee that Dan realises he hasn't been to a coffee shop in _years_.

Ironically, his very first date with Amber had been in a coffee shop. And he had hated every minute of it. It wasn't Amber's fault. She was great company and Dan enjoyed talking to her, but he just couldn't seem to attach any romantic strings to the ambience of that coffee shop. There were far too many people for his liking, and he felt like everything he said to Amber was being projected through a speaker and made public for everyone in the vicinity to listen to.

But  as he looks across at Phil from the small wooden table, he's finding it difficult to locate his hatred for coffee shops. Phil catches his gaze and grins back at him.

"Your nose is all red," Dan says, then takes a big sip from his mug.

Phil chuckles softly. "Yeah? It's like four degrees outside. I'm surprised it's still attached to my face."

Dan looks down at his mug with a smile. His insides begin to twist with guilt as he imagines Amber walking home in this weather, probably freezing herself half to death. Again, Phil seems to pick up on his predicament and smiles at him sympathetically. Dan's noticed that he's really good at that. The whole telepathy thing. Maybe it's a side-effect of being a counsellor, or maybe it's just a side-effect of being a nice person. Either way, Dan appreciates it.

"So." Phil sounds uncharacteristically nonchalant as he places his mug down on the table. "D'you want to talk about what happened today?"

Dan looks up and meets his gaze. He's always considered blue to be a cold and unforthcoming eye colour—too icy and unforgiving. Too intrusive to hold. But as he looks at the deep cerulean of Phil's eyes, and how it contrasts deeply with the warm ambers and yellows of the coffee shop, he's never felt so invited.

"Actually." Dan rests his elbows on the table and then rests his head on his hands. A sign of budding confidence. "I would really like to talk about anything _but_ myself. Let's talk about you."

Phil almost chokes on his drink. "I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."

"We're not in your office, Phil," Dan reminds him. "We can make our own rules."

Phil seems to consider that for a moment. His eyebrows draw together as though he's trying to salvage the last of his hesitancy. It’s certainly not the most valiant attempt Dan’s ever seen.

"Alright," he relinquishes. "What d'you want to know?"

"How long have you been a counsellor?"

"This is my second job in the field." Phil's answer comes quicker than Dan had expected, followed instantly by a proud grin. "I had a similar job back in Manchester, but I left it for this."

Dan smiles as he suddenly starts to pay more attention to Phil's northern accent. "Why did you leave your previous job?"

Phil pauses—a rapid twitch of his lips, but his resolve doesn't waver. If it does, Dan doesn’t notice. "I guess I just wanted a change. Seeing the same people every day, doing the same thing—taking the same commute. It's more mind-numbing than you'd expect."

Dan swirls the tip of his finger around his coffee.

"I couldn't do what you do," he says, his nose wrinkling up. "Listening to other people's problems all day and trying to offer practical advice. I don't have the patience for it."

"I thought you said we're not talking about you?"

"We're not." Dan grins at him meekly, removing his finger and bringing it to his lips. "I'm just talking about a hypothetical version of me."

"So what _is_ your job then?" Phil narrows his eyes carefully.

Dan's smile falters. "I'm an editor. But that's the last thing I'm telling you about myself for today. We're focussing on you now."

And so they do. Dan tackles Phil with a myriad of questions, his curiosity not once quenching, and in response he learns that they have an overwhelming array of similarities. Their common ground stretches from favourite foods and movies and bands, all the way to the strategies they would pursue in a zombie apocalypse and the type of dog they would absolutely _love_ to adopt. Dan finds that his grip on reality is slowly loosening as he loses himself in the back of the coffee shop.

That's why, when a tired-looking waitress walks over to them to inform them that the shop is closing, he feels like he's been slapped in the face.

" _Shit_." Dan stands up so quickly he almost gets whiplash. "What time is it?"

Phil looks at his watch and then meets Dan's gaze with a timid smile. "8:30. I'm really sorry..."

Dan shakes his head as he looks down at his phone. No missed calls or texts from Amber.

"It's fine. I enjoyed myself."

"On the bright side, this is the most I've heard you talk in the whole time I've known you."

Phil sounds hopelessly excited about that fact. Dan rolls his eyes with a chuckle but he can't stop the waves of guilt that are crashing towards him; he _knows_ that the only reason he doesn't talk much at counselling is because he doesn't want to upset Amber. That makes her look like some kind of villain, and Dan really doesn't want to give that impression.

"I really hope Amber hasn't organised a search-party for me."

Phil smiles at him softly. "Do you want a ride home? It might soften the blow."

He wonders if riding home with Phil would be one step too far. They've already breached way too many boundaries today, just from having this coffee, and he's pretty sure he can't afford to breach anymore. For Amber's sake, and for his own peace of mind.

"No thanks. I don't think Amber would take too kindly to having our counsellor drive me home." Dan immediately regrets his choice of words when he notices surprise flashing in Phil's eyes, if only for a second. He nudges him. "No offence, though. I had a really good time."

"Yeah, me too." Phil's smile looks soft and sleepy as they walk to the door of the shop, and somehow Dan feels warmer than he has all evening. Than he has all year. "At least now you might feel more comfortable when I see you at the next AA meeting."

Dan visibly cringes when he hears those words, his hand coming to a halt on the door handle. Amidst today's whirlwind of events, it had completely slipped his mind that he's got his next Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in two days. And, unsurprisingly, he's still dreading it as much as he was when he left his last one.

"Yeah." Dan does his best impression of a smile as he opens the door and leads them into the chilly night. "Maybe."

 

When he finally gets home that evening, tired and completely unprepared for whatever argument Amber is ready to enrol him in, it comes as a big surprise to see her sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of coffee. She smiles when she sees him standing by the doorway to the kitchen.

"Hey," she greets softly. Her voice sounds quite raw. Young. Dan guesses she's been crying.

He's not able to gauge what kind of mood she's in so he just smiles at her and stands still. He feels awkward for hovering and his feet are aching from spending fifteen minutes trying to flag down a taxi, but he doesn't want to do something that will potentially aggravate her even more.

"I made you some coffee." She picks up the untouched mug with a smile, but it soon turns into a grimace when she notices how cold it is. "But, as you can see..."

Dan smiles as he walks towards her and takes the mug. "It's fine."

Silently, he places the mug in the microwave and sets the timer for one minute. As he waits for the coffee to heat up, he stands with his back to Amber and closes his eyes as he waits for her to start asking questions. _Why are you home so late? Where did you go? Did you go to the pub? Are you drunk?_

But she doesn't. The timer goes off after one minute and Amber stays silent. She stays silent as Dan stirs his coffee, and as he adds more sugar, and as he sits next to her at the table. In fact, she stays silent for the rest of the evening.

And when they get into bed that night, lying on opposite ends of the mattress, not a single word is uttered between them.


	4. Four

There are fewer people in attendance at Dan's next AA meeting. Phil had told him this as they were "sorting out" the chairs in the community centre when Dan had "accidentally" arrived too early. Phil explained that it's because November is the flu season, so more people are bound to get ill and therefore not show up. Dan reckons that fact should make him feel less apprehensive about the meeting. It doesn't.

As he sits in the circle of chairs with the rest of the group, he tries not to focus on the rapid beating of his heart or the shrill ringing of nervousness in his ears.

"New Year's resolutions..." Phil has taken to pacing around the outside of the circle as he talks to the group, and Dan's finding it incredibly distracting. "I know we're not in January just yet, but has anyone made any?"

The sound of people moving awkwardly in their seats echoes through the room. It's almost like classical conditioning: people can't help but shuffle and squirm whenever Phil asks a question.

However, one guy—the same ginger-haired, chubby-faced guy from last time—raises his hand with a timid smile.

"I got one," he says, casting a cautious gaze around the circle. "But you all have to promise not to laugh."

Dan narrows his eyes in confusion but Phil just cheerily promises him that everyone will remain serious.

"Alright, so. My New Year's resolution is to listen to more classical music. Sounds stupid, I know, but...it helps my mood. And it's sure better on my liver than vodka."

The rest of the group exchanges low murmurs of agreement and Phil beams at him.

"That's a fantastic example, Matthew! Do you have any classical artists in mind?"

Matthew shrugs his large shoulders. "I hadn't got that far. Bach, maybe? I don't know."

"I really hope that works out for you. It's important to set small goals for yourself every so often. Does anyone else have any New Year's resolutions?" Phil pauses as he looks around the room, his lips twitching into a small smile when everyone recoils into their seats. "Oh, come on, guys. Surely _someone_ in this room has thought of something? Alright, I'll tell you mine." There's another pause as Phil continues pacing for a few moments, before stopping behind an unoccupied chair and leaning his hands on it. "I'm going to start cooking more. At the moment, I'm constantly relying on takeaways because I'm just so busy, but I'm going to make more time for myself in the new year."

There are few chuckles and more mumbles of agreement. Dan notices that Phil's eyes are sparkling but he doesn't know why; he's far too happy for this kind of environment. But then again, Dan’s noticed that Phil is far too happy for _any_ environment.

"So now that I've told you mine, can anyone take inspiration from it?" Phil's voice is gradually becoming more hopeful. "Dan? Any New Year's resolutions?"

The sudden attention surprises him more than it should, leaving the tips of his ears burning with embarrassment. He tries to meet Phil's gaze with a smile. Phil is nice. Why should he be afraid to open up to him?

"I haven't really thought about it," Dan says casually.

"Could you maybe think about it now?" Phil's voice is gentle, tentative, as though he's probing around something that could self-destruct. "What do you need to do more or less of?"

Dan pauses to think. His nonchalance is quickly leaving him. "I guess...I guess I could try to have fewer arguments with my wife?"

He only realises how pathetic that sounds after he's said it, completely reddening with embarrassment. The smile Phil gives him in response is knowing and soft.

"That would be a really good start."

Dan tries to ignore the way he strongly disagrees.

 

The only thought racing through Dan's mind as he stands on the pavement, chilled to the bone in his soaking clothes, is rain. And lots of it.

He's been trying to flag down a taxi for the past ten minutes, and while usually it's not the most exhilarating of tasks when he's dry, it's almost certainly impossible to do when water is gushing down his cheeks. He really needs to invest in a car.

There's a fleeting moment in which he considers curling up in the gutter and just sleeping until he has enough energy to continue scouting out a ride home, but his imagination is cut off when the rain suddenly stops pounding against the top of his head. When he looks up, he almost shrieks out of sheer surprise to see an umbrella covering him, and suddenly a heavy but gentle hand is being placed on his shoulder. The fingers curl ever so slightly and bunch up his soggy coat.

"Hey," a chirpy voice says. Dan instantly recognises it as being Phil—he knows by the low cheeriness that it can't be anyone _but_ Phil—so he turns around to face him. "AA ended ages ago. Why are you still here?"

Dan tries, he truly does, to listen to Phil's words, but all he can focus on is how hot Phil's breath feels against his cheeks. The umbrella has caused them to be pressed together, almost chest to chest, and Dan thinks it feels heavenly compared to the biting bitterness of the rain. The spicy smell of Phil's cologne is making him woozy.

"I've been trying to get a taxi to go home," Dan whispers, slightly breathless and confused. "As you can see, I'm not having the best of luck."

Phil chuckles and Dan resists the urge to close his eyes because Phil's voice is so soothing and _so_ what he needs right now.

"I can give you a ride? I know you declined my last offer, but it still stands. I don't want you freezing to death."

Dan smirks. "Jeez, you really are keen on taking me home, aren't you?"

Yep. He’s hit the delirious stage. Fucking rain.

"Maybe." Phil studies him with careful eyes. He doesn’t seem too phased. He never seems too phased by anything. "But, the thing is, your teeth are literally chattering right now and I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that that's one of the first signs of hypothermia."

"Oh, really?" Dan tries to make his voice sound sarcastic, to sound as defensive as he wishes he could feel right now, but he can't deny that Phil's right. He's literally _freezing_ . He toys with the idea for a moment. It would be _so_ nice to have a ride home because he lost all feeling in his fingers about five minutes ago and he doesn't hold out much hope for the rest of his body. But what would Amber say? He hopes she'd understand that these are exceptional circumstances.

"Alright, alright," Dan concludes eventually. "But I'm blaming you if Amber kicks me out."

Phil's excitable grin turns into a softer one, and he leads them to his car. It's conveniently parked only a few minutes away from the community centre and Dan feels himself literally _sighing_ with relief when he collapses into the passenger seat, closing his eyes instantly.

"The seats warm up, you know," Phil tells him once he's started the car. Dan moans in satisfaction as his legs and ass are suddenly surrounded by warmth.

They don't talk much on the way home. That's mainly attributed to the fact that Dan hasn't really opened his eyes once, but he does make a noise of appreciation when Phil starts playing Muse songs. Conveniently, Muse was one of the things they talked about for ages when they were in the coffee shop, one of their mutual obsessions, so Dan can't help the small grin that reaches his lips when the opening bars of _Map of the Problematique_ start playing.

He does his best to direct Phil to his house and by the time they arrive there, he doesn't want to leave.

"I guess I'll see you on Friday?" Phil is staring at him with his unmistakable, subdued confidence.

Dan ignores the way his heart beats slightly out of turn as he climbs out of the car. "I'll see you Friday."

 

There's a lot to be said about Dan's biology when it takes him over an hour to realise that he's sweating. When he opens his eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the darkness, he almost wishes he hadn't woken up at all. Amber is still sleeping next to him, and as he listens to her soft, uninterrupted breathing, he tries to ignore the hard-on that's aching between his legs.

His mind is still fuzzy from his almost-hypothermia. That must be what caused the dream.

He's had plenty  of dreams like this before. Of course, it's inevitable for adolescent boys to have to take awkward 2am trips to the bathroom when they're woken up in the middle of the night. But he's not had one in so long, and he's _never_ had one like...this.

It was so vivid that he can still feel the strong hands on his shoulders, holding him down with an exploring kind of adoration— _dominance_. He can still feel the breath against his neck, the sultry voice in his ear. The murmuring. Oh, God, _the murmuring_. Dan reckons that's what had woken him up from his dream; the sensation had been too much for his unconscious to bear. He groans and quickly yanks his hand away when he realises that he's started palming himself, applying just the right amount of pressure to take away the discomfort.

It only takes one particularly loud snore from Amber for him to decipher that he absolutely fucking cannot stay here.

As he stands up and heads to the bathroom, he's practically skipping out of his boxers with a newfound bout of energy that just keeps spurring him on. The eerie silence of the bathroom makes him feel somewhat deviant, like he's tiptoeing around someone else's house, so he compensates by turning on every available tap to drown out the feeling. It doesn't do much to help his predicament—nothing could, he’s so fucked—but he does feel less paranoid. He doesn't even wait for the shower to heat up before he’s stepping inside and accepting the water with a huffed sigh.

He allows the last dregs of his guilt to materialise, bubbling to the surface with gradual effort, before taking a deep breath and wrapping a hand around himself. The feeling comes as more of a shock to him than it probably should, the compressed air in his chest knocking out of him in a violent breath, and it's all he can do to lean his back against the wall and try to compose his breathing. He's been putting it off for so long, but when he finally lets his imagination run wild, he can't help but choke out a groan when his counsellor’s face comes into view, his strong hands and self-assured expressions clouding up the last of his sanity. Dan can't find it within himself to feel guilty about the dream he had about Phil merely ten minutes ago. Not when his hand is moving so quickly, pulling and tugging him to his eventual release in a way that has his knees buckling and his lips quivering.

He starts moving his hand faster as scenes from the dream begin to materialise, tightening his grip until he can feel his cock twitching in his hand as he rubs his palm over the head. And that _—that_ brings out a whine in him, a sound so desperate and shrill and _uncharacteristic_ that he has to do it again. When he opens his eyes for a brief second, he can see his breath fogging up the space in front of him, but he can only look for so long before the force of his pleasure forces his back shut again. Everything is just bursts of bated breath, rumbling through him as though all control he once had over his body has been replaced with desire.

Soon enough, and probably _too_ soon, the tight pressure in his lower abdomen becomes even tighter. As he draws closer and closer, his hand's movements become more erratic and needy, speeding up until they're just short tugs. Dan briefly considers slowing down his movements because _, fuck,_ he's not felt this good in such a long time and he wants to savour the feeling. But when he's on the very cusp of releasing, the tightness in his groin coiling and burning white hot, he can't garner the willpower to stop. Instead, he sucks in a large breath and holds it as he feels himself coming all over his hand. He lets out the stuttered breath in slow puffs as he feels his chest convulsing in time with his cock, and he looks down at himself as he continues stroking shakily to ride out the last of the pleasure.

By the time he opens his eyes again, the water has washed everything away. The only evidence of his late-night rendezvous is the way his chest is heaving with every breath he tries to take.

It takes him quite a while after that to realise that he's crying. He can't feel his tears because the water is still pouring down his face, but when he lets out a particularly violent sob, his legs finally betray him and he slides down the wall. The euphoria has passed. Now that he can think straight, he can come to terms with what the _hell_ just happened to him.

He just had a dream about his relationship counsellor. His very professional, very _male_ relationship counsellor. And he really fucking enjoyed it. What the hell does that mean? He's no psychologist and he's certainly no expert when it comes to therapy, but he's pretty sure that getting off to the thought of your counsellor isn't part of the process. The attachment isn't supposed to run _that_ deep.

After a few moments, Dan tilts his head back so that the stream of water is pouring directly onto his face. The steam blurs with his salty tears and he hiccups again, crying quietly into his hands as he feels the chill of the air around him seep into his bones. He stays like that for too long. Just crying and shaking and willing himself to go back in time, back to when he had the choice to just _stop_ and _think about what he was doing._ Now it's far too late and he knows—he can fucking _swear_ —that he'll never be able to look Phil in the eye again. He refuses.

When the water starts to run cold and his tears aren't gushing out quite so fast, Dan lets out a shaky breath and pushes himself to his feet. He wobbles for a second, getting used the feeling of not being supported by the wall, and then steps out of the shower. He finds himself inwardly thanking the fact that the mirror has been fogged up because he can't bear to look at himself right now—can't bear to face his pathetic tear-stained cheeks and unmoving frown.

That's why, when his legs start automatically moving towards the bedroom, he doesn't stop himself. He doesn't stop himself as he silently moves to the wardrobe, nor does he contest when he pulls out an old hoodie and track pants. In fact, he doesn't allow himself to stop at all, and by the time he knows it, he's heading out of his front door with his hood smothering his damp hair and another lump forming in his throat.

And then he's running— _sprinting_. Absolutely no sense of direction. Just sheer desperation and an overwhelming desire to be alone—to find solace in any of its forms.

 

It seems the world becomes a whole new level of fragile in the early morning.

When the streets are so naked that just a single scuffle of footsteps could cause them to vibrate. When the trees are so still they seem to wail mournfully when a single breath tickles their leaves, their trunks shuddering, protesting—as though they're not quite ready to be woken up.

Dan's breath feels too heavy for his chest. His feet are slapping against the concrete painfully as he runs, hitting the floor at such a sharp angle. He doesn't slow down his pace, though. He's nearing the local park and he knows there will be plenty of benches he can rest on when he stops.

If he stops _._

His body is refusing to register the dull ache in his side, the shocks of pain that shoot up his legs every time he makes contact with the ground. It's all forced. Every foot he puts forward is another puncture to his foul mood. But he can't stop. If he does, he can guarantee he won't get up.

As he's running, he looks around the park—tries to take in as much scenery as possible, to drink it up as though it'll allow him relief from the sweltering heat in his lungs. A desperate attempt at cleansing his mind of the constant flow of anxieties. There's not much to look at, though. It's just too empty. Dan's not sure of the time, but he knows it's ridiculously early; the sky is that kind of grey-blue colour—the kind that looks way too heavy and imposing for such a fragile time of day. There are thin veins of white running through the sky, too. Areas where the clouds have cracked to give way to the morning sun. It all looks too unstable—like one small change in colour, one small shift of the clouds, could cause it all to fall apart.

And that's when he sees it. A flash of black darting towards him.

He snaps his gaze away from the sky, having been completely unaware that he was staring for so long, and looks in front of him. There's a dog running towards him—a small, gangly little thing with an obvious limp—and Dan sucks in a breath. He's by no means afraid of dogs, but when one is bounding towards him with unclear motives, he reckons he can justify a little trepidation.

Stupidly, he stops running and stands still. Just allows the dog to keep running until it has run so far that it's jumping up at him. He closes his eyes as he awaits the growling—the scratching and biting of his thighs, the vicious barking. But it never comes. Instead, all he gets is playful whines for attention, and then, in the distance—

"Sofia! Come here!"

Dan's eyes snap open so fast he can feel the impact of it in the back of his head.

Jogging towards him is a figure, slightly blurred by Dan's hazy vision. He squints his eyes to make sense of the situation and then immediately wishes he hadn't.

As luck would have it, jogging towards him is Phil Lester. The very same Phil Lester that played a leading role in one of Dan's most sinful, regrettable dreams. The very same Phil Lester that Dan is paying to salvage his marriage.

The very same Phil Lester that Dan _really_ doesn't want to be seeing right now.

Suddenly, Dan's already-dry mouth gets even drier and he's finding it difficult to breathe. He's literally glued to the spot as Phil continues jogging towards him, _pleading_ with his mind to just do something, but it's no use. Phil is already in front of him now, and he's bending down to pick up the dog and—

"I'm so sorry about that," Phil pants, standing up properly with the small dog in his arms. When his eyes meet Dan's, they widen with familiarity and his eyebrows draw together so fast that Dan reckons they could fall off his face. Slowly, Phil removes an earbud from his ear, not once breaking his gaze. "Dan?"

Dan can literally feel his chest vibrating with the struggle to breathe. He doesn't say anything—he can't. He just stares. Stares at Phil's curious face as he tries to get his brain to work.

And then suddenly it’s like there's this realisation within Phil. His curiousness turns into fear and he takes a step forward, ever so gentle—as though Dan is the animal in his arms instead of the dog.

"Dan?" Phil is using his therapist voice now. Dan flinches at the familiarity of it but he still can't bring himself to do anything. "Dan, you're shaking. How long have you been out here?"

Still nothing. Phil looks panicked. He's scanning his gaze over Dan's body repeatedly, probably looking for some kind of injury. Dan just follows his gaze—helpless and frozen.

Slowly, Phil lifts his hand to touch it to Dan's forehead, but Dan dodges it with a gasp. The world around him suddenly springs back into motion and he's aware of his surroundings again, breathing deeply as he stares at Phil in disgust. And then he's running. Again. The dull pain in his side is very much present, but he pushes through it.

And by some miracle, he's able to keep running until Phil's screaming voice is nothing but a whisper.


	5. Five

“But I haven’t made your room up, Dan.” Emma’s voice sounds tired down the phone. Dan wonders if his mother has only just woken up. “And what will you eat? I have none of your favourite foods!”

Dan glances up at the woman walking her dog who’s looking at him curiously. He must look ridiculous right now: slouched against a tree in the park at six in the morning with his scruffy hoodie pulled up to hide his red face. Definitely not his finest look.

Definitely not his finest hour.

“It’s okay, mum. I can do all of that. I just need a place to stay for a few days.”

Emma pauses for a moment. “Not to be insensitive, but can I direct your attention to the house that you pay a considerable mortgage towards.”

Dan sighs and rubs a hand over his face.  _ You love her _ , he reminds himself.  _ You love your mother, and your impatience definitely doesn’t make you want to scream at her right now. _

“I’d just like to see you,” he lies. It’s textbook Dan Bullshit. “Is there any harm in wanting to spend some time with my family?”

“Well it’s a bit short notice,” she says, and then, without giving him chance to reply, “Does this have anything to do with Amber?”

“No,” he replies quickly, because it doesn't. Not this time. Not technically. “Why do you always assume there’s something wrong with me and Amber?”

His defensiveness probably speaks volumes. It has all his life. It did four months ago, when his mum suggested that maybe he and Amber weren’t working. That maybe all of their efforts were coming up futile. That maybe they should call it a day.

He was on the phone to the first relationship counsellor he could find that same afternoon.

“I’m just saying. You sound flustered. Are you sure you’re attending all of your sessions?”

“Positive.” He stands up and begins pacing around the tree to work out the cramp that’s forming in his legs. “I think the sessions are working, actually.”

He chooses to miss out the part where “working” actually means screwing his marriage counsellor in his dreams. Details aren’t important. That’s what he’s been telling himself for the past half hour, at least. It's just details.

"Well that's good, right?" Emma encourages. She sounds like she's bending to the highest degree to sound hopeful. "You know how I feel about Amber. You need to make things work with her. You'll regret it if you don't because she'll—"

"Because she'll be the one that got away. I know." Dan kind of stops listening after that. Partly because he's had this conversation more times than he would care to divulge, but also because he  _ swears  _ he just heard someone call his name. He looks up and does a quick scan of the park, and really, he should be more surprised when he sees Phil jogging towards him, but he's not. He's not surprised at all. Just kind of really pissed off, and a little done with the whole situation. Does this guy not let anything go?

"Fuck's sake, man."

"Dan?" his mum questions.

"Dan!" Phil calls, jogging towards him with the small dog in tow.

It's like something from a bad superhero movie.

"Mum, I've gotta go." Dan doesn't really give much more explanation after that. Just hangs up and pockets his phone. He'll definitely get berated for it later.

As he stands there squinting, watching Phil's features become slowly more recognisable as he jogs closer, he can't help but feel like the whole thing is a little awkward. He can't help but feel a little guilty. Phil's still jogging towards him, and really it's a bit unnecessary because Dan is just kind of standing there. He knows it's because Phil thinks he's going to make a run for it again, and honestly, Dan has considered it, but the whole thing makes him feel embarrassed. He feels like Phil is his dad trying to rein him in after a drunken night out. 

Dan really doesn't pay him enough for this. 

"Jesus  _ fuck. _ " Phil stops and bends down when he reaches him, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "Are you aware that you're literally impossible to track down?"

Dan blinks at him, studying his pink face. He swallows down any response he could possibly give.

"Seriously," Phil continues. "What are you, like, 6'1?"

"6'2," Dan supplies quietly. 

"Right." Phil pushes his damp fringe out of his eyes and watches him. "Yeah, apparently that doesn't mean shit when I'm trying to find you in this place."

Dan feels a bit taken aback by how different Phil seems like this. When he's not wearing a suit or reclining in his therapist's chair or flicking through pages of the ICD to diagnose him. He looks  _ panicked _ . Raw, genuine, unfiltered panic. Not the kind that a professional would feel for their patient. The kind that Dan would feel for Amber, or for his mum. He can't help his heart from twisting when he thinks about that. 

"You followed me?" Dan asks dumbly. "Why?"

Phil stands up straight and looks at him. Dan notices that he doesn't look particularly tired for a guy who's just been chasing a twenty-six year old man around the park at six in the morning. Maybe it really is part of the job description. Phil studies him, and it seems like he's looking for something until he just rolls his eyes and lets out a small chuckle. Dan can't tell if it's a humourless chuckle or if it's the current hour making his voice sound deeper than it actually is.

Phil shakes his head. “It’s none of my business why you were wandering around the park looking like you’d seen a ghost at this time of the morning. So I won’t ask questions. But will you get breakfast with me?”

Dan makes a face. “What?”

“I have to go home soon to get ready for work. I always walk Sofia at this time,” Phil continues, gently scratching behind the dog’s ears. “But I have time to eat something before I leave.”

Dan just stands there for a few moments. He has to admit that this is the first time he’s ever been propositioned by any counsellor in the park at 6am. Especially a counsellor that he’s actively trying to  _ avoid _ . How does he always get himself into these situations?

“Breakfast,” he says. “With you?”

Phil nods. “I think that’s what I meant.”

“Okay, that’s..” Dan nods. “Yeah, I mean- right.”

It’s totally cool. It’s totally fine. Dreams don’t mean shit, and all Dan has to do is forget about his. They’re not living in Freudian times anymore; he doesn’t need to psychoanalyse every damn move he makes. Besides, he concedes, maybe this could actually be good for him. Maybe a Very Casual breakfast with his Very Professional counsellor could be the reality-check he needs to make him stop worrying about nonsense things.

“Great.” Phil smiles a dazzling smile, but Dan doesn’t miss the way he looks slightly relieved. “Breakfast’s on me.”

 

They end up stopping at a coffee shop nearby with pastries that Phil swears will change Dan’s life. It doesn’t look particularly life-changing as Dan stares up at the flickering ‘open’ sign and the tired teenager behind the counter. But Phil looks unusually excited about the whole thing, and he’s describing every pastry in novel-like detail, so Dan smiles through it. 

They order a breakfast to go, because the world hasn’t caught up yet and dogs still aren’t allowed to sit in coffee shops. 

And it’s a bit of a shock when Phil suggests that they should take the breakfast back to his place. Dan has to admit that his heart jumps into his throat out of sheer nervousness. 

But for some masochistic reason, he agrees. 

 

Phil’s home is everything that Dan thought it wouldn’t be.

He’d spent a good majority of the walk there imagining the lavish, three-storey detached house he would soon be walking into, upon where he would leave his shoes at the double doors and walk across the sheepskin rug to the plasma TV that stretched around the whole room. 

So when they arrive at a small, unassuming apartment complex, Dan’s a little surprised. The closest thing Phil has to sheepskin is the Shaun the Sheep plushie sitting on his radiator. 

“Sorry if it’s a little cold,” Phil says as he shuts the door behind them. “I never leave the heating on. Bad habit.” 

Dan takes his shoes off on the coir doormat, looking around. “It’s fine.”

Phil leads them to the living room, and Dan is struck by how much colour there is. Almost nothing coordinates, and it seems as though every colour of the rainbow has clashed together to form some kind of abstract artwork. There are random trinkets everywhere: on his coffee table, littered across his windowsill, on his bookshelf. (Which, surprisingly, is dedicated to an alarmingly large collection of anime DVDS).

Dan smiles when he sees it, walking over to it so he can judge Phil’s taste.

“Oh, you’ve found my shrine.” Phil follows him.

“Can I really trust a counsellor that watches anime?”

Phil chuckles. “You don’t like it?”

“I love it,” he says. “I haven’t watched it in years, though. Amber’s not too keen.”

He remembers the first and last time he tried to get his wife into anime. She spent the whole episode complaining about the subtitles and then told him it reminded her of something she would have watched when she was ten.

“Tell you what,” Phil says. “You pick out something to watch and I’ll go get plates.”

Dan looks at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I always watch a show when I’m eating.”

Dan smiles a bit at that. “Yeah, alright then.”

Phil grins excitedly and disappears into the kitchen, leaving Dan to browse. He recognises most of the titles as shows he’s watched before, so he can’t help but smile fondly. It’s kind of like a trip down memory lane.

He’s halfway through reading the back of Phil’s Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood box-set when something on the mantelpiece above the fireplace catches his eye. He looks over and notices a small photo-frame. He puts down the box-set and walks over to it, noticing that it’s a picture of Phil with his arm around a sweet-looking girl. Dan picks it up carefully and studies it. They’re both smiling and Phil doesn’t look much different to how he looks now, so it can’t have been taken long ago. What’s strange though is that this is the only picture Phil has in his living room. The whole place is adorned with posters and colourful artworks and silly stickers, but there are no pictures of  _ people _ . No pictures of Phil’s friends or family. No evidence to suggest he has a life outside of this room. Just this one picture.

Phil’s voice makes him jump a bit when he enters the living room. 

“I wasn’t sure how hungry you were so I just gave you a bit of everything. Did you pick a show?”

“Uh.” Dan quickly puts the picture down. He grabs the first season of Sword Art Online from the bookshelf. “Yeah.”

“Great. C’mon.”

Phil all but collapses onto the couch, and Dan takes that as his cue to join him. They get the show set up and start unashamedly appreciating the breakfast and, just a few minutes in, Dan realises something about the whole thing feels oddly natural. Something about sitting here with this man like this, to be eating breakfast with him and watching a mutually loved show as though Phil is a friend he’s had for years and these are traditions they’ve built together. 

Dan can probably convince himself this is true, if he squints and closes his eyes. 


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like chapters would go up so much quicker if i didn't spend 5% of my time writing and 95% of my time editing every. single. word.  
> ty for the comments/kudos<3

Dan wakes up a while later to a small weight on his chest and something licking his face. He cracks one eye open, then the other, then takes a few embarrassing seconds to remember where he is.

Phil's dog is still licking and pawing at him as he sits up. He rubs his eyes, partly in an attempt to wake himself up but mostly just to wipe away the dog-saliva, and looks around. He can’t tell if his memory is foggy or if he’s just being oddly perceptive, but the place looks a lot tidier than it did when he first got here. Their empty plates from breakfast have been cleared from the coffee table, and there’s a small note in their place. He picks it up.

_Left for work. You fell asleep halfway through the first episode (rude!!) and I didn’t want to wake you. There’s some money on the mantlepiece if you want to get a taxi home and I’ve left my number if you need anything. Spare key under welcome rug. Plz lock up :]_

_Phil_

Dan reads over it a few times, then a few times more. How long had he been asleep? It must have been a long time if he didn’t hear Phil get ready for work or leave the note, and he must have been _exhausted_ if he even fell asleep in the first place. He can’t imagine the coherent part of his brain making that decision. He can’t imagine any part of his brain making that decision.

He puts the note down and sighs. It's considerably brighter outside now. Phil has opened the curtains and blinds, he notices, and the early morning sun has given way to a nice blue sky.

Nice enough for him to stare at and ponder what the fuck he’s doing here.

Running into his relationship counsellor in the park is one thing. Getting breakfast with him and going back to his house is another, but he can rule that out as being in a state of delirium and making bad impromptu life-choices. (He's working on it). But falling asleep. During said breakfast. On said counsellor's couch. That's a whole nother thing. A whole nother level of whole nother thing. Dan groans and rubs at his face in an attempt to push the thought away.

He doesn't even remember falling asleep, that's the thing. There had actually been a moment during breakfast when he felt pissed off. He realised quite soon into breakfast that Phil was not a passive consumer of anime. He expressed his gratitude for the show by actually shouting at the TV and trying, probably literally, to get the characters to listen to him and make different decisions. It was annoying at first. It really was. Years of watching TV with Amber in the evenings has conditioned him to know that TV time is _quiet_ time. It’s not ‘yelling at the TV and jumping up in your seat every two seconds’ time. But Dan surprised himself by how quickly he adapted to Phil’s outbursts. Even though he couldn’t hear the show a lot of the time and he was being jolted every time Phil jumped up, he actually found that Phil’s enthusiasm was more entertaining than the show itself.

He looks at the note again and decides that the most productive thing he can do in this moment is text Phil. If he’s going to intrude on the guy’s breakfast-anime routine, he should at least thank him for it. He types Phil’s number into his phone and saves him as a new contact.

Dan: ty for letting me crash on your couch. I promise I'm not homeless

Dan: this is dan btw

Phil’s reply is practically instant. Dan wonders if he’d been waiting.

Phil: Thanks for clarifying. It’s easy for me to lose track of who I let sleep on my couch after breakfast

Dan can’t help it when he smiles down at his phone. He chews on his lip as he stares at their conversation.

Dan: it was kinda comfy actually. 11/10 would crash again

Phil: No long-standing neck damage?

Dan: not that I’m aware of

Phil: No injuries to your spine? An injured foot maybe??

Dan chuckles to himself. The couch really was comfortable. Something about Phil’s entire house is comfortable. Something about Phil—

He doesn’t allow himself to continue that thought.

Dan: nope. i think we’re okay

Phil: Shocking :o give it time. That couch wreaks havoc on my neck

Dan: i’ve slept on my own couch enough times to know that your couch is indeed a good couch

That was probably too much. He always gives a little too much. This is supposed to be a light-hearted conversation. Phil’s response comes a few seconds later.

Phil: You are a couch connoisseur

Dan smiles. Phil just takes it in his stride. He always does.

Dan: or a bad husband

Phil doesn’t reply again for a few minutes. Dan chews on the tip of his thumb as he stares at his unlocked phone screen.

Phil: Lol. I should go before my next client gets here, see you Friday!

Dan replies with a few thumbs-up emojis and then drops his phone onto his thighs. He covers his face with both hands. This precisely what he fucking needs. Let’s make the poor guy even _more_ uncomfortable. Somewhere out of the corner of his eye he notices that Sofia is sending him a sympathetic look. He sighs and scratches gently behind her ears, not caring when she crawls into his lap and makes her bed there. He sighs again.

“Keep this between us,” he tells the small dog. “Only you know how much of a fucking idiot I am.”

 

He ends up leaving Phil’s house promptly after his complete flop of a conversation. Something about being surrounded by all of Phil’s colourful possessions, all of the houseplants and terrariums and silly plushies, the things that make him distinctly _Phil_ , feels weird when he’s not actually there. Dan imagines this is what Disneyland feels like when all of the actors have gone home for the night.

He considers declining Phil’s offer of paying for his taxi home, because that’s one step too far on his steadily growing list of steps too far, but then remembers that he doesn’t actually know where Phil’s flat is. Or the route they took to get here. He could just Google Maps it, and he does consider that option, but decides he can’t face anymore long-distance walking for the rest of his life.

So he’s a man of convenience. Fucking sue him.

He takes the money from Phil’s mantlepiece and pockets it. He’ll pay him back at the next AA meeting. It’s only as he’s walking out does he realise that the picture he saw a few hours ago of Phil and the girl is now gone from his mantlepiece. Phil must have moved it while Dan was sleeping, but why? If he didn’t want anyone to see it then surely he wouldn’t put it on display like that. That’s weird. It’s really fucking weird, but he shrugs the thought off and focuses on getting a taxi home.

 

Dan’s fumbling to get his key in the door when Amber calls him. He picks up and holds his phone between his shoulder and ear. “Hi, babe.”

“Hey. You weren’t there when I woke up.”

He pushes the door open with his hip and widens his eyes a bit. Perhaps he should have prioritised telling his wife where he was instead of texting Phil. Why is he only just realising this now?

“Er, yeah.” He closes the door behind him and leans against it. “I went for a run. Only just got back now.”

“Oh.” Amber doesn’t sound particularly doubtful. “You should have waited until I was awake. I would have come with.”

“Yeah, sorry.” He feels a bit guilty at that. “We’ll go together next time.”

He doesn’t explain that the only reason he went on the run in the first place was to be on his own. Running with Amber is actually kind of fun. It’s one of the few things they do together besides the mundane stuff like grocery shopping and the occasional dinner with Amber’s parents, and he looks forward to it. She was the one who originally motivated him to get into running in the first place. He’d been on so many different health-kicks throughout the years, all of them he failed miserably, but when he told Amber he intended to take up running, she actually listened. She’d ended up buying him a whole new running kit for Christmas: some running shorts, new shirts, a Fitbit, Nike shoes with his name on them. It was actually really sweet. He’d been so touched that he started his new hobby the very same day.

“Sounds good,” Amber agrees softly. “I’m gonna be at mum and dad’s all day. I’ll be back after dinner. Do you want me to bring food?”

He thinks about it. “Nah. I’ll probs order pizza.”

“You and your pizza,” she chuckles teasingly. “What’s this running _really_ for, Dan?”

He finds himself smiling. “Hey, you can’t Domino’s-shame me. We’ve been through this.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just try not to infect our _whole_ house with pizza grease,” she tells him, then pauses for a few seconds. “Hey, Dan?” Her voice sounds a bit softer.

Dan adjusts his grip on his phone. “Yeah?”

She’s quiet for a few moments before speaking up.

“I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah. See you later, Amber.” He swallows around a dry throat and looks down at his phone when the call cuts off.

That was...odd. It was normal in the sense that this is his wife and he’s spoken to her on the phone countless times, but it just felt different. Amber felt different. He sighs and pockets his phone. He’s going to get a stress-headache if he keeps thinking about things too much.

His throat is still dry so he slumps off to the kitchen in search of water. He only gets to chug half of the glass before his phone is buzzing again. He sighs and unlocks it. This time it’s a text from his best friend.

Louise: What are you up to on this fine Monday?

Dan squints at his phone with conviction.

Dan: what do you want

The reply comes instantly, as it always does.

Louise: For shame! Can’t a girl check up on her best friend?

Dan: …………

Louise: Alright alright, I’m bored

Dan chuckles to himself. If any mother of two was going to be bored, it would be Louise. She could find herself bored in a room full of people. He doesn’t even get chance to start typing before another text comes through.

Louise: I’m also like one minute away from your house

Louise: So

Dan: louise! wtf what if i was naked??

Louise: Ew you text me when you’re naked?

He rolls his eyes. His impossible, maddening friend.

Louise: And don’t lie and say you’re at work because I know you have Mondays off

He’s about to text her that she needs to stop showing up at his house spontaneously and taking advantage of the fact that she knows his work schedule, but he’s interrupted when there’s a knock at the door. He answers it and gives her a look.

“You need to stop showing up at my house unannounced,” he tells her.

She chuckles and walks in with the pushchair, looking as though she’s being doing this for years. Which she has.

“I gave you notice,” she shrugs, watching as Dan has already crouched down to fawn over the baby. “Besides, if I didn’t visit you then no one would. Hobbit.”

“Are you hearing this?” Dan speaks softly to baby Pearl. “Your mummy is abusing me. She’s an abuser. Yes she is.”

Louise rolls her eyes and pushes him out of the way with the pushchair. She walks into the living room and takes Pearl out of her pram, letting her crawl around the living room floor. Dan has a box of baby toys in his living room precisely for this reason.

“I brought brunch,” Louise tells him. “So you can stop whining for a start.”

He scrunches his nose up. “What did you get?”

“French toast.” She hands him the paper bag.

“That’ll go far in convincing me to forgive you.”

He takes the bag and and plates them both up and undignified amount of food. Soon enough, they’re both sitting on the couch and eating their brunch, watching Pearl play with a tiny jigsaw puzzle and talking about Louise’s newest postnatal class. Suddenly, she stops talking.

“Alright, what’s up?”

Dan looks up from his plate to see her staring at him. “Huh?”

“You’re picking at your food. Normally you would have finished it by now and be eyeing up mine.”

He shrugs and drops the raspberry he’d been rolling between his fingers onto the plate.

“I had a big breakfast.”

She raises an eyebrow. “When has that ever stopped you before?”

It hasn’t, but he’s also never had breakfast with his counsellor before. With the counsellor he had an...interesting dream about just hours previous. Really, he’s a bit fucked.

“I don’t know. It’s just been a weird morning.” He doesn’t plan on elaborating anymore after that, but this is Louise. Louise doesn’t deal with half details.

“Why?” she asks casually, her mouth full.

He could lie. Or omit most of the truth, at least. There would, in theory, be no real reason for Louise to know what happened this morning. It’s not like she would ever find out. But Dan has never kept anything from her before. Years of friendship have led them to a silent agreement of knowing what is going on in each other’s lives. Knowing _everything_ that is going on in each other’s lives. Dan sighs.

“I went for a run this morning and bumped into mine and Amber’s relationship counsellor.”

Louise nods. “Dr Elliot?”

“No. Our new one. He’s called Phil.”

“Oh.” She rests the plate on her lap. “Why is that weird?”

“We got breakfast together,” he says. He doesn’t like the way his voice sounds like he’s admitting something. “And like, that’s not _weird_. But I feel weird about it. Who gets breakfast with their counsellor?”

“I wouldn’t.” Louise shrugs. “But that’s just me. What’s this Phil like, anyway?”

Dan tries to think about it from a patient's perspective. Objectively, Phil is a good counsellor. He listens and says the right things at the right time and offers advice that Dan actually goes home and thinks about instead of just disregarding. He’s professional and patient. All of the things Dan needs to remember he is.

Phil is a _professional_.

“I like him.” Dan shrugs casually. “I mean, obviously I’d prefer not to have to go to counselling, but he’s the best of a bad situation.”

Louise observes him quietly, then takes a bite out of her toast. She’s quiet as she chews a few times, then swallows.

“Cool,” she says. They change the conversation pretty quickly after that.

 

Louise ends up staying for most of the day, as she usually does when their schedules align and they’re both free to spend time with each other. It’s nice. A break from his routine is something Dan wishes he did more often, something he wishes he actively sought. They end up taking Pearl for a long walk around the park, stop off for lunch at a cafe they’ve been to many times, and by the time Louise is just about to leave his house in the evening, Amber arrives home.

Dan smiles and greets her at the door. He kisses her on the mouth. “Hey. Good day?”

“Busy,” she breathes, taking her coat off. She notices Louise and smiles. “Hello, Louise.”

“Hello,” Louise smiles, a little awkward. “Don’t worry, I was just about to leave. I’ve taken up too much of your man's time already,” she jokes.

“Oh, it’s not a problem,” Amber assures her, but Dan can tell that it probably is. She’s smiling tiredly, and she probably wants nothing more than to just get into bed. Dan would be lying if he said he couldn’t relate.

Amber and Louise didn’t always get on. Before she knew the nature of Dan and Louise’s friendship, Amber had been jealous of her. She had accused him of seeing Louise behind her back, of cheating on her. It wasn’t until she confronted them about it a party, and Louise almost threw up at the thought, did Amber finally believe they were just friends.

“Well, I should probably..” Louise trails off, gesturing to the door.

“Yeah.” Dan nods and steps forward to hug her. “Thanks for coming, Lou. I’ll see you soon.”

She smiles and leaves, closing the door behind her. Immediately, Amber sighs and points to the kitchen.

“I need a brew.”

Dan laughs. The rest of their evening is spent in much the same subdued way. They drink tea, talk about Amber’s parents’ house renovation, watch TV, and go to bed earlier than Dan ever would have before he was married. He’s lying on his back, wide awake and listening to Amber snore quietly when his phone buzzes. He rolls onto his side and picks it up.

Phil: It just dawned on me that you could have robbed me today so like thanks for not doing that

Dan reads it a few times, then feels a smile stretch across his face. Phil is weird. He decides right now, in the darkness of his bedroom, that Phil is fucking _weird_. He types out a quick reply.

Dan: the pleasure’s all mine


	7. Seven

Dan is pleasantly surprised to find that the rest of his week returns to much the same routine he’s used to. That is, a routine without questionable occurrences with his counsellor and a decided effort  _ not _ to think about such occurrences.

He immerses himself in his work, taking on extra projects and gradually earning his boss’s trust back. It’s busy, and it’s gradual, and it’s a lot, but he craves it. The buzz of not having any time to himself is slowly becoming addictive.

By the time Friday rolls around, and it’s time for his and Amber’s weekly counselling session, he feels ready. He’s been told these things work best when the mind is at its most receptive, and he feels like he understands that now. He actually wants to engage with the sessions. He wants to make progress and have results to walk away with. He doesn’t want his wife to  _ hate  _ him.

He’s running late, as usual. By the time he’s taken the large flight of stairs, two at a time, and has skidded into Phil’s office, Amber and Phil are already making conversation. They’re talking quietly, he notices, and Dan’s suddenly overcome with the desire to have been a fly on the wall for those few minutes when he wasn’t there. Phil notices him before Amber does, looking up from where he’d been listening to Amber speak and sending him a big smile.

“Dan,” he says brightly. He sits up a little straighter. “Come on in.”

“Sorry I’m late again,” he says, walking in and taking a seat on the large leather sofa beside Amber. It’s a little embarrassing how out of breath he is.

Phil waves him off. “You’re fine. Gave me and Amber a chance to catch up.”

Dan barely conceals a frown. What do Amber and Phil have to catch up on? They’re not exactly friends. They’re not exactly  _ anything _ , really. Just two people brought together by a mutual goal of trying to salvage a relationship. Trying to salvage this particular relationship. 

Amber smiles. “Yeah. Phil was just saying how you guys saw each other when you went for a run. You never told me that.”

Dan feels his face heat up a bit. Well, he hadn’t been expecting that. He hadn’t been expecting that at all. The truth is, he doesn’t really have a reason for why he didn’t tell Amber about seeing Phil. He easily could have. There’s nothing to hide. Not  _ really _ . Dan just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Every time he thought about it, he felt weird about the whole thing and retreated further into his cave of not thinking about it. Really, not thinking about it is the only thing that’s gotten him through the week.

“I didn’t?” Dan asks dumbly.

Phil is stepping in before Amber has a chance to say anything.

“I told her about how my dog kind of accosted you in broad daylight,” he chuckles. “And how I don’t understand how anyone can have the motivation to go running so early in the morning.”

Dan swallows. So Phil didn’t tell her  _ everything _ that had happened that morning then. He mustn’t have told her about the fact that Dan obviously looked like he’d been crying, or that he literally freaked out when he saw Phil, otherwise Amber wouldn’t be as calm as she is right now. She would most definitely be hurling questions at him.

“I don’t understand it either, Phil,” Amber says with a sigh, giving Dan a faux disappointed look. “Most days, I have to drag him out of bed if we want to go on a run. I don’t know what came over him.”

“I’m not  _ that _ lazy,” Dan mumbles, but he knows she’s mostly right. As much as he loves running, as much as it’s one of his favourite hobbies, he doesn’t do it nearly as much as he would like to.

Amber chuckles, then pats his cheek. “Okay, love.”

Dan looks up in time to see Phil watching them in that calm, observing way. There’s a faint smile visible on his features as he catches Dan’s eye, and Dan finds his cheeks heating up again. He really needs to find a way to stop himself from doing that. Inadvertently blushing every time his counsellor looks at him isn’t exactly doing wonders for his state of mind.

“So,” Phil says, taking the weight of his gaze off Dan and looking at Amber. “Shall we start?”

 

The session is as routine as ever. They talk about how they’ve been feeling throughout the past week, try to pinpoint things that have caused them to become upset with each other, and by the end of it, Dan actually feels a lot better. He feels calmer, at least. It’s always a relief when he and Amber are getting along, even if it’s with the help of a neutral mediator. At least it’s  _ something _ .

At the end of it, Phil catches up with Dan while Amber has gone down to reception to discuss payment.

“Did you get home alright on Monday?” Phil asks, walking up beside him. Dan jumps a little at the unexpected attention.

“Oh, yeah, shit. That’s...” He stops and reaches inside his pocket for his wallet, pulling out a £20 note. “Thanks for the taxi fare.”

Phil looks down at it, then shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. It was my treat.”

“Seriously.” Dan feels a little awkward as he pushes the money towards Phil’s hand. “You kind of saved my life with that money. I think I would have literally died if I had to walk home.”

Phil chuckles. The sound is light and breezy as he stuffs his thumbs in his pockets. “Well you ate breakfast and watched anime with a complete loser. Consider this my payment?”

“That’s…” Dan scrunches his nose up. “Doesn’t that make me an escort?”

Phil snorts. It’s loud enough that it echoes down the corridor, and one of the nearby psychiatrists looks up concernedly from her computer. Phil covers his mouth.

“It makes you my  _ friend _ ,” he corrects. His voice is a bit more hushed than it was a few seconds ago. “But since that feels like it would be breaking some code of conduct, I’d feel better if I paid you.”

Dan crosses his arms. “I’ve never been paid to be someone’s friend. And I don’t intend to break that tradition today, thanks.”

“Then consider it a gift?”

He looks skeptical. “For what occasion?”

“For…” Phil looks around in thought. Dan follows the movement. “For because I would like to pay for your taxi.”

“For because you would like to pay for my taxi?”

Phil nods. Dan laughs. “I love the English language.”

“Alright, Mr  _ Editor _ .” Phil jabs his chest. “I never claimed to be amazing at English.”

Dan rolls his eyes. He goes to try and stuff the money in Phil’s pocket, but Phil is too quick, grabbing Dan’s wrist and holding it still. He stares at him, and Dan suddenly feels cold as he looks back. They stay like that for a few long seconds as Dan tries to mentally whip his heart rate into shape.

“I didn’t tell her, by the way,” Phil says after a few moments. His voice is quiet.

Dan feels his heart stop. His immediate instinct tells him that Phil is talking about the dream. Somehow, for whatever bizarre reason, probably because the universe likes to fuck with him, Phil has found out about the dream. The dream Dan had about him. The dream that he  _ shouldn’t  _ have had about him. Or anyone. Fuck. He suddenly feels like he could throw up.

“You...what?” His voice cracks a bit.

“I didn’t tell Amber that you were crying when I saw you in the park,” Phil elaborates. “But you should.”

Dan lets out a quiet breath. Of  _ course _ Phil doesn’t know about the dream. No one does, and no one ever will. It was just a moment of insanity. A subconscious one, at that. How can Dan control what he dreams about? He can’t be expected to be held accountable for something he didn’t even know he was doing. 

His paranoia is bordering on ridiculous now.

He laughs awkwardly. “Right. I wondered when you were going to bring that up.”

“I’m not going to pry,” Phil says calmly. “But there’s obviously something you’re not talking about. If you want, I can arrange a private session —”

Dan rolls his eyes and pulls his wrist back from where Phil had been holding it.

“Everybody  _ cries _ , Phil. You should know that better than anyone.”

Phil looks a bit taken aback by that. If Dan knew him better, if he’d had time to build up a repertoire of Phil’s emotions and facial expressions, he would even go as far as to say that he looks hurt. Before Phil has time to react, Amber is walking up to them and linking her arm through Dan’s. 

“Ready to go?” she asks, not noticing the way they’re staring at each other oddly. 

Dan peels his gaze away and looks at her, forcing himself to smile. “Ready when you are.”

“Aha!” Amber notices the £20 note he’s holding and swipes it, kissing him on the cheek. “You owe me for dinner yesterday. See you outside.” With that, she saunters out of the building.

Dan watches her go, but he can still feel the weight of Phil’s gaze on him in his peripheral vision. It’s a few seconds before either of them reacts to what just happened.

“Do the right thing,” Phil tells him. He’s using his counsellor voice, and that alone makes Dan want to crawl inside his own skin to get away from it. It’s a little ridiculous how sick it makes him feel. Instead of reacting, he just sends Phil a final glance before following his wife outside. 

Honestly, screw Phil for thinking he can lecture Dan on how to handle his problems. He’s paying him to sort out his relationship, not to be a fucking life coach.

 

By the time they get home, Dan’s still aggravated about the whole thing. Amber is talking to him about the day she had at work, some drama with her line-manager that’s been ongoing for a few weeks now, but all he can focus on is Phil’s patronising tone and the way he looked at Dan like he was a lost cause. Like he was some poor charity that Phil wanted to be a hero for. It honestly makes him feel sick. 

“Dan?”

Amber’s voice makes him look up from where he’d been slowly untying his shoelaces. 

“Yeah?” he asks.

“I thought I’d lost you there.” She smiles tiredly. “I said it’s lasagne for dinner.”

He nods and looks at her, studying her features. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail but has inevitably become loose throughout the day, leaving wispy strands of hair to dangle in front of her eyes and frame her face. She has smile lines now, a feature she never saw in her teens. Her skin is still soft.

His wife.

His beautiful, beautiful wife, who is currently talking to him about pasta and moving his shoes from where he’d dumped them by the door. Dan’s not really listening as he walks over to her, touching a hand to her face and just feeling. Soft. Everything with Amber is soft. 

She stops what she’s saying watches him. Lets him have this moment. She seems to understand the way he drags a thumb over her bottom lip to feel the chapped skin.

“Dan?”

He meets her gaze and she’s giving him  _ that _ look. The look that reminds him he doesn’t need Phil to teach him how to love her.

Because he’s been doing it himself for years.

She kisses him.


	8. Eight

They’re on the same side of the bed.

Dan’s mind is always a little too groggy this early in the morning, always a little slow starting up, but he’s pretty sure he understands, under the haze of half-sleep, that he and Amber are sleeping on the same side of the bed. It’s a little daunting at first, when he goes to lift his shoulders in a yawn and brushes against something warm. Something soft. He blinks an eye open.

Amber’s sleeping on her front. Her bare back is exposed to the slight chill of the morning air. Her mouth is open, a thin line of drool connecting her bottom lip to the pillow. Her hair is messy and draped over Dan’s shoulder. He stares. Stares because his body is still giving into the ache of tiredness and his eyes are squinting to stay open and he’s not sure he could move anyway - not that he wants to.

She’s beautiful. He knows she’s beautiful. Why has he been ignoring that she’s beautiful?

When he lifts a hand to run the back of his knuckle along the groove of her back, she flinches. An involuntary reflex. It makes him smile when she settles back down into the pillows and sleeps. He curls around her and does the same.

 

The next time he wakes, it’s to the sight of Amber hopping around the bedroom to pull her jeans up her legs. She’s holding a comb between her teeth and her blouse is half buttoned up. Dan rubs his balled fists against his eyes to wake himself up. The movement seems to grab Amber’s attention and she turns to watch.

“We overslept,” she tells him.

He stretches his arms above his head in a yawn. “You looked peaceful.”

“Do I look peaceful now?”

He frowns. Okay. Ouch. Clearly they’re light-years away from the idyllic moment he found himself waking up in a couple hours ago. Amber doesn’t look quite as peaceful when she’s staring at him like he’s just killed a puppy.

“I’m serious, Dan,” she says, dragging a comb through her hair. “It’s Saturday.”

Dan sighs. Saturdays mean one thing. Lunch with Amber’s parents. Lunch with Amber’s parents that always seems to turn into coffee, and dessert, and a whole day’s excursion.

“What time is it?” he asks as he sits up and stretches. Because for him, waking up is a gradual process. It’s like if a diver comes up for air too quickly they’ll get the bends. If Dan wakes up too quickly, he’s guaranteed a bad mood for the rest of the day. It’s chronic.

“11:15. Mum wants us there by 12.”

“Right,” he says. “Well I only need like 15 minutes, tops. It’s fine.”

She gives him a look. “And you plan to shower in that time?”

“I don’t need to.”

“Dan. I’m not letting you see my parents smelling like that.”

He frowns and sniffs his armpit. He doesn’t even smell bad. He smells nice, actually. He’s about to argue that point, but the look on Amber’s face tells him that maybe he shouldn’t. She always gets this way when her parents are involved. Always a little too touchy and desperate to impress. Dan would be saddened by it if it weren’t so annoying.

“Fine,” he relents, getting up to walk to the bathroom. He stops to ruffle her freshly brushed hair on the way. “Shower, then to your birth-givers we go.”

He tactfully avoids the slap she sends him as he’s walking away.

 

Sally has got a pair of oven gloves under her arm when she opens the door. There’s a bit of batter on her apron, and her face is red, hair pulled back into a ponytail similar to the one Amber’s sporting right now. Amber smiles.

“Mum,” she says as she walks in. Dan follows, holding two bottles of wine—one non-alcoholic, because Amber means what she says. Dan watches as they embrace, and as Sally pulls away to look at him.

“Daniel.” She smiles and holds his shoulders. “You’ve gained weight.”

“Brilliant,” he says.

Amber rolls her eyes. “Mum, you say that every time you’ve not seen him for more than a week.”

“But he has!” Sally insists. “Look at his cheeks.”

Dan holds up the wine bottles. “Where should I put these, Sal?”

“I’ll sort that, dear.” She takes them and starts ushering him and Amber to the living room. “Go and sit down before lunch. I hope you’re hungry.”

 

Lunch takes the same course it does every Saturday. Dan, Amber and her parents sit around the large dining table, making polite conversation that Dan pretends to be interested in. It’s considerably easier for him now than it was a few years ago, when it was just lunch with the parents of the girl he was screwing. It’s easier now that some kind of repertoire has been established. Even if it’s shaky and completely unpredictable. Dan appreciates the small accomplishments.

They’re currently talking about Louise’s new baby. Dan’s not entirely sure how they got onto the subject, but it’s an improvement. There’s only so much he can talk about Amber’s parents’ house renovation or Gordon’s golf club drama before he runs out of things to say.

“She’s so small,” Amber enthuses. “Like the size of a teddy bear. It’s so cute.”

Sally smiles over her wine glass. “And will Louise have another?”

“I’m not sure.” Amber looks at Dan for help.

He shrugs. “Who knows. She’s had on and off baby-fever for months.”

“And what about you?” Sally asks.

“What about us?”

“Do you have baby-fever?”

Dan almost chokes on his non-alcoholic wine. He’s dribbled a bit of it down his chin, which he wipes away with his sleeve.

“Um…”

Amber looks a bit uncomfortable. “I mean, we’ve _talked_ about it.”

They haven’t. The last time they talked about babies was when they were teenagers and the prospect of settling down together with a fairytale house and a family sounded dreamy. Nowadays, they can barely manage a full conversation about the electricity bill. Dan suddenly feels claustrophobic.

Sally nods. “You know I don’t want to give you the whole talk about body clocks and ticking. But..”

“Mum.” Amber blushes hard. She never blushes. “We can’t rush these things.”

“Of course not. But you’re not getting any younger. You won’t have the privilege of time forever.”

Amber meets Dan’s gaze. Her eyes are clouded over with something a little too close to alarm, and he swallows. It’s only ever her parents who seem to send her into this state of panic.

“We’re just being careful about it,” he shrugs. It’s not really a lie.

Sally seems pacified by that as she smiles and puts her hand on Amber’s. “Just as long as I get my grandchildren.”

Dan’s stomach twists. His phone buzzes a few times so he takes it out and looks at it under the table, making the most of the fact that Amber and Sally are preoccupied with their conversation. There are several texts from Louise and a missed call.

Louise: Question

Louise: Does your counsellor have black hair

Louise: Kinda tall???

Louise: I can’t be too sure but I think I’ve just seen him in the hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi on tumblr @danisnopeonfire :)


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (just a heads up that this chapter includes very minor details of violence/injuries)

Dan’s eyes widen. The tightness in his throat from all of the baby-talk gets a little tighter as he reads over the messages. Curse Louise for never giving away too much…

He looks up to see Amber, Sally and Gordon lost in conversation.

“Uh…” He clears his throat. “Sorry, I just need to make a call.”

Amber notices his expression and frowns. He probably looks whiter than the linen napkins.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just.” He points vaguely to his phone. “Louise.”

“Oh. Is she alright?”

Louise is fine. But their fucking therapist might not be.

He nods. “I think so.”

She nods and sends him a smile that says he should go. He lets out a small breath and leaves the room, heading outside of the big house and closing the door behind him. There’s a small bench in the front garden where he could sit, but he ignores it in favour of pacing as he dials Louise’s number. She picks up on the first ring.

“I have so many questions,” she says.

Dan breathes out. “Yeah, me too.”

“You sound panicked.”

“I’m not pa---how do you know it was Phil?”

“I looked him up when you told me about him. I wanted to know the guy that was gonna be poking around your mind.”

He sighs. If he weren’t so on edge, he’d probably laugh at that. Typical nosy fucking Louise.

“What did you see?”

She’s quiet for a few moments. “It didn’t look very good, Dan.”

“That’s…” He readjusts the phone against his ear when he realises he’s pressing it too tight. “What does that mean?”

She sighs. “He looked like he’d been beaten up or some shit. I don’t know. I don’t know stuff like that. There was a black eye and blood and stuff, and---”

“Yeah?”

“He looked angry.”

Dan pauses to breathe. He’d somehow forgotten he needed to do that the whole time he’d been listening to Louise. He can feel the pulse point on his neck throbbing as all of the blood rushes to his head.

“And where is he now?”

There’s rustling on Louise’s end of the line. “I don’t know. I only stayed for Pearl’s check-up. I’m back home now.”

He brings a hand to his face to rub away the tension. There are about a million different scenarios swimming through his head, each one worse than the last. How could Phil Lester of all people get himself into a situation like that?

“Um, thanks for telling me, I guess.”

“Are you okay?” Louise asks quietly.

Nope.

“Yeah. I’m sure he’ll be fine. It’s not really any of my business.”

Louise is silent for a few moments. “Alright, Dan. I have to go. Impatient baby and all that.”

He swallows. “Yeah, okay. Bye.”

He hangs up and pockets his phone. There’s a dog barking somewhere down the street that he’s only just noticed. One of the neighbours is washing their Porsche with a hose. The sound of children’s laughter can be heard vaguely in the background.

He casts a foul look to the neighbourhood and walks inside.

 

They don’t stay much longer after that. The whole table, it seems, has picked up on his sullen mood. Sally doesn’t even offer dessert. In the taxi home, Amber is giving him a look. The look she gives him when she knows she’s said something too far in an argument, pushed a little too hard, and doesn’t know how to approach him. Dan can feel a lump rising and falling in his throat the whole way home.

“Well, that was fun,” she says when they walk inside. “At least mum was in a good mood.”

Dan shrugs. He doesn’t bother to take off his coat or shoes as he heads to the kitchen in search of tea. Amber follows him, watches quietly as he moves around the kitchen.

“And all of that talk about babies.” She hops up on the counter. “I was scared she would scare you off.”

“I think if your mother was going to scare me off, she’d have done it by now.” He leans against the counter as he waits for the kettle to boil.

Amber shrugs. “There’s still time.”

After a minute, the kettle starts boiling, and Dan jumps a bit when his phone starts ringing at the same time. He fishes it out of his pocket while he’s picking the kettle up and almost splashes boiling water on himself.

Phil’s name is flashing across his screen.

“Jesus, Dan!” Amber jumps up quickly when she’s almost splashed with the water. “Have you gone completely fucking insane?”

Dan’s a little too shocked to react to what she’s saying. He just lets her take the kettle from him and stares at his ringing phone until it stops ringing, then immediately starts ringing again.

“Sorry, I, uh…” He looks up at Amber. “Phil’s calling me.”

“Therapist Phil?”

He nods and looks back down at the phone.

“What does he want at this time?”

“I don’t know.” He gives a valiant attempt at trying to conceal the panic in his voice. “He’s never called me before.”

Amber has already started mopping up some of the water that got on the floor. “Well are you going to answer him?”

“Yeah, um…” He fumbles with the phone, but by the time he gets his thumb on the ‘answer’ button, it’s already stopped ringing.

Amber rolls her eyes. “Call him back tomorrow. He’s probably calling to cancel an appointment or something.”

“I should probably call him now, though. I don’t want to be rude,” he lies, overwhelmed by the fear that something is seriously wrong. He ignores her shrug and muttered _whatever_ as he leaves the room and heads upstairs. It’s only when he’s sitting on the edge of his bed does he call Phil back. Phil picks up straight away.

“Dan?” he asks quietly. “Oh, Dan, thank God. I didn’t think you were going to pick up.”

“Phil?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I---” Phil’s voice sounds strained. Like someone has resized his trachea a few inches too small. Like he’s swallowing around something sharp. “I hate that I’m calling you at this time. This is so fucking unprofessional and I don’t really know what I’m thinking, but I just---”

Dan stops him. “Phil, slow down. What’s wrong?”

“I need your help.”

“O-kay.” Dan tries to push the thought of blood and bruises and black eyes to the back of his mind. “Help with what?”

“I got myself into a bit of trouble. I don’t know anyone else in the area who can help me right now. You’re...like the first friend I’ve made so far.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Phil pauses. He seems hesitant. “If I told you the address of the hospital I’m at, would you come and pick me up?”

Dan cringes. Louise was right. It _had_ been Phil she’d seen at the hospital. Not some randomer, or some uncanny lookalike that Dan had been hoping for. Phil. The same Phil that, until this moment, Dan never would have associated with blood and violence. The only Phil he knew was the one who perhaps had a bit too much information about Dan’s love life and got overly invested in anime shows and had too much colour in his living room.

“Please, Dan,” Phil continues when Dan hasn’t responded. “I don’t have my car. No money. Family’s miles away. I would have gone to---”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“I’ll come and pick you up.”

“Dan.” Phil sighs. “Dan, thank you. Thank you so fucking much. I’ll pay you for your time, obviously, and you won’t have to---”

“What’s the address?” Dan tries with the rest of his dwindling willpower to control the panic rising in his chest. Now isn’t the time for him to have a complete meltdown.

“Oh, um…” Phil takes in a shaky breath. “I’ll text it to you. Yeah.”

“Okay,” he says. He can’t tell if his efforts to sound calm are coming up successful. “I’ll be there soon, Phil. Just hang on.”

He hangs up after that. He can’t bear to hear Phil’s pleading tone any longer, the way he’s addressing Dan like he’s a lifeline. Like he’s shouting into the void and Dan is the only one who can hear him. It makes him want to cry for whatever pain Phil is going through right now.

“What did he want?”

Dan looks up when he sees Amber leaning against the door frame, arms folded over her chest. She looks oddly impatient.

“Because if he’s calling to reschedule an appointment, you can tell him that’s not possible,” she continues. “My diary is packed every day next week.”

Dan shakes his head. “No. It’s...it wasn’t about an appointment.”

“Then what was it?”

He looks down when his phone buzzes with a new text. It’s from Phil, giving him the address of the hospital. Dan only reads over it once before familiarity strikes him. Thank _God_ it’s the hospital most local to his house. He looks up at Amber again.

“Phil needs some help with something,” he says. If there were any time for euphemisms, this was it. He figures a non-direct approach is the best one. “He wants me to pick him up from the hospital.”

Amber gives him a strange look. “The hospital?”

“Yeah. I think he’s stranded. Doesn’t have his car or any money to get home.”

“That’s all fine,” she says slowly. “But why is he asking you? Isn’t that a bit...” She gestures vaguely.

Dan thinks back to Phil’s earlier, panic-filled words. How he’d apologised profusely for being unprofessional. _You’re like the first friend I’ve made so far._ Something about that felt a little too personal for Dan to digest. And a little too personal for him to share with Amber. He doesn’t understand why it sits heavy in his stomach.

“I don’t know,” he lies, standing up and pulling his coat on. “But I need to go now. I don’t even know how long he’s been waiting.”

Amber’s still watching him from the doorway. Her whole expression _yells_ scrutiny.

“Well you better make sure he pays you or something,” she says. Then her eyes light up a bit. “Or tell him to just take it off the next session’s bill. That would be better.”

Dan stares at her. “Unbelievable. You’re actually unbelievable.” He shakes his head. “I’m going.”

He doesn’t stay long enough to see her disconcerted expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for 100 kudos <3 i'm just imagining 100 people in one room. that'd be a pretty fuckin crowded room


	10. Ten

The taxi ride to the hospital is anxiety-inducing in a way that Dan hasn’t felt since high school. He spends most of it alternating between trying to remember the breathing exercises he learnt in therapy and checking his phone to see if Phil, on the off chance, has sent him another text. Anything that will update him on what the hell is going on.

 _No news is good news_ , he tries to remind himself. _Unless no news means that Phil is dead in a ditch somewhere and you’re already too late_.

He shakes his head, trying to snap himself out of it. Now isn’t the time for histrionics. Now is the time for being a responsible fucking friend. He’s just thankful that the taxi driver hasn’t tried too hard to make conversation. He definitely wouldn’t be able to cope with that right now. When Dan got in the car, the guy had tried to ask him if he’d watched the match at the weekend, but then took one look at Dan’s haircut and Dan’s answer of definitely _no_ and left him alone for the rest of the journey. Honestly, Dan was more grateful than he was offended.

“There we are, mate,” the driver says as they pull up outside the hospital.

Dan goes to get his wallet out, but then pauses. “Actually, could you stay? I’ll be coming back. Just need to pick up a friend.”

“Alright. But the meter’s running.” He nods to it then looks at Dan. “Best be quick.”

Dan nods as he’s taking off his seatbelt. “Thanks. Two seconds, I promise.”

When he steps out of the car and looks up at the hospital, he realises he probably should have prepared for this a little more. The driver has dropped him outside of the A&E main entrance, but this hospital is _huge_ and has so many wards, and Phil could be in any one of them. Dan gets his phone out to call Phil, but as he presses it to his ear and looks up, he spots him.

Barely.

Phil is standing against a brick wall to the left of the main entrance. He’s got one foot pressed to the wall as he fiddles with some kind of plastic cup, his head pointed to the ground. He’s wearing a dark blue hoodie with the hood pulled up to hide most of his face, and Dan would probably be more doubtful that it was actually him if it weren’t for the small flash of black hair poking out from beneath the material. It’s definitely him, but so _not_ him at the same time.

Dan’s never seen him this sad. He supposes that makes sense, though. The circumstances under which they came to know each other are strictly professional. Of course he hasn’t seen Phil in one of his lowest moments.

And really, he realises with a heavy heart, he was never supposed to.

After clearing his throat and taking a deep breath, Dan approaches him. Phil doesn’t even notice him or look up until Dan is standing just a foot away from him, but when he does look up, Dan feels all of the air in his lungs betray him and escape through his mouth in a sharp gasp.

Phil is practically unrecognisable. His face has become contorted with shades of yellow and purple and red, barely an inch of his skin not covered in bruises. He’s got a black eye, just as Louise described, but it’s worse than that. It’s like someone has taken makeup to his face and tried to conjure up Dan’s worst nightmare. It’s so horrifically awful that it almost looks fake.

“Phil…” Dan feels his heart clench uncomfortably.

Phil tries to smile at him, but his left eye is so closed up and bloodied that it almost looks painful. It probably is.

“You should have seen the other guy...” His lame attempt at a joke doesn’t even make Dan crack a smile.

“What happened to you?” he asks. He has about a million questions he wants answers to right now, but he figures this one takes priority.

Phil crumples up the plastic cup between his fingers and shrugs, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He looks up at Dan carefully, and Dan’s almost blinded by the pathos in his expression.

“I want to go home, Dan,” Phil says quietly. A little too quietly. “I really...I need you to take me home.”

Dan swallows thickly and nods. He forces a calm, reassuring smile onto his face.

“I can do that.”

Phil is silent as he lets Dan guide him to the car.

 

They don’t speak the whole way home. Every time Dan thinks he’s going to say something, he realises there’s nothing he can really say in a situation like this. Nothing he can contribute to a conversation that would just be half-hearted and empty. So he sits there, wordlessly, and watches Phil as Phil stares out of the window.

When they arrive at Phil’s apartment, Dan pays the driver and gets out with him. Phil looks tired as he turns to Dan for the first time since they got in the car.

“Thank you so much,” he says, looking over Dan’s face. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you weren’t here today.”

Dan smiles. “Maybe you could pay me back by letting me come inside so we can order a pizza?”

He's not really sure where that comes from. It's not like he planned to stay longer than he needed to. He could say goodbye to Phil now, and that would be job done. His good deed for the day would be completed. But he knows he'd regret it later, and he certainly wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if he left Phil alone like this.

Phil’s expression falters a bit. “Dan, I can’t expect you to...”

“To indulge in my biggest love in life?" Dan grins. "Mate, you don’t know how much I love pizza.”

He's not stupid. He knows exactly what Phil means by his words, and he knows that Phil is definitely trying to get rid of him. But Dan's determined to remain light-hearted. And he’s definitely determined not to let Phil be alone when that’s clearly the last thing he needs.

Phil looks down. “You’ve already done so much just by being here. I mean, I shouldn’t have even called you. Fucking hell, if my boss ever finds out…”

“Well it’s lucky I’m easily bribed.”

Phil looks up, looks between both of Dan’s eyes for a few long seconds, looks at the serious expression on Dan’s face, then smiles. It’s a small smile, but it’s enough to reassure Dan that he’s going to be okay.

“Pizza sounds fucking spectacular right now,” Phil says.

 

They get inside and it’s not long before Dan’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, scrolling through the Domino’s website on his phone while he waits for Phil to get out of the shower. It’s the weirdest limbo Dan’s ever been in - stuck between wanting to ask Phil everything at once and wanting to give him the headspace he needs. He feels like he’s not going to get it right.

When Phil walks out, wet hair and dressed down to pyjama pants and another hoodie, he collapses onto the couch beside Dan. He’s wearing glasses that he has to nudge up his nose every few seconds. There's a tired look in his eye.

“I got you pepperoni,” Dan informs him. “You look like a pepperoni kind of guy.”

Phil chuckles quietly. “I’m offended. Are you saying I’m basic?”

“Are you a pepperoni kind of guy?”

He stuffs his hands in his pocket. “No comment.”

Dan smiles. He looks up at Phil’s face and studies his bruises again, studies the inflamed, puffy skin around his eye and the stitches on the side of his forehead that Dan hadn’t even noticed until now. He’s on the cusp of asking Phil to tell him what happened when Phil stands up and walks to his bookshelf. Dan sighs to himself.

“What show do you want to watch while we eat?” Phil asks as he browses through his DVDs. “We can watch something from here, or I have Netflix…”

Dan shrugs in defeat. “Whatever you want.”

Phil goes silent, then returns a few moments later with a DVD of an anime that Dan’s never heard of. He looks like he’s about to say something, but then he takes one look at Dan’s face and stays silent, instead walking over to his TV to start up the show.

 

When the pizza arrives, it’s Dan who answers the door. He only needs to take one look at Phil’s panicked face to know that he doesn’t want anyone to see him like this. He doesn’t want the world to give him the same pitiful looks that Dan’s been giving him. When Dan comes back with the pizzas and sits down, he doesn’t even let Phil open his box before he asks him.

“What happened to you, Phil?”

Phil doesn’t look up. He takes a slice of pizza from the box and puts it on his plate, then licks the grease off his fingers.

“I got mugged,” he says easily.

Dan tries to keep his tone neutral as he takes a bite out of his pizza. “By who?”

Phil looks up then. He’s looking at the mantlepiece with an unreadable expression on his face, and Dan doesn’t even realise where he’s staring until he follows Phil’s gaze and sees. Phil is staring at the same picture Dan saw when he first came here. The picture of Phil with his arm around a girl. The picture that Phil had moved while Dan was sleeping, but now conveniently seems to be back in its original place.

Phil looks away from it and shrugs. “By a guy.”

“A guy?” Dan asks.

“Yes.”

“Not, like, a group of guys?”

Phil picks a piece of burnt cheese off the crust. “No. Just…a guy.”

Dan nods. His gaze drifts to the picture again, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s speaking up.

“Who’s that girl?”

“What?” Phil looks at him. He sounds alarmed all of a sudden.

Dan’s cheeks heat up. “The girl in the picture. You keep...staring at her.”

Phil looks at the picture again, then looks away quickly. He puts his plate on the coffee table and Dan realises that he’s barely touched his food. He’s just been picking at it the way Dan always does when he’s anxious or can’t get something off his mind. He can’t help the way it makes him feel unnerved.

“She’s just someone I used to know,” Phil says.

“A friend?”

“I guess so. What’s with all the questions, Dan?”

Dan shrugs and looks down at his plate embarrassedly. “I like to know things.”

“Right.” Phil laughs a bit, but it’s soft. “That’s what people who are nosy say.”

“I am not nosy.”

“That is also what nosy people say.”

Dan rolls his eyes, but when he looks to the side to see Phil smiling at him cheekily, the first genuine smile he’s seen all day, he can’t help but smile himself. He pushes down the rising, fluttery feeling in his stomach.

“Eat the pizza, weirdo,” he says. “It’s almost a crime to watch something so beautiful go to waste.”

Phil puts a hand to his chest. “You think I’m beautiful?”

Dan splutters over his pizza. “No, that’s not…”

“Dan, I’m joking.” Phil smiles, but it’s almost devilish. “Please try not to choke on my couch.”

Dan sends him a scowl, and they fall into a companionable silence after that. For the most part, Dan struggles to get into the show because he’s always had issues compartmentalising when pizza and anime are concerned, but the quiet ambience of Phil’s living room is enough to make him relax and finally switch off from all of the thoughts that have been plaguing him for the last few hours. It’s honestly a welcome respite.

All of a sudden, Phil is speaking up. “Her name was Aubrey.”

Dan looks up, pulled out of his trance of pizza and TV. When he turns to look at Phil, he sees that he’s staring at the picture again. His expression is completely blank. The only thing that gives away any hint of emotion is the tear running down his cheek. Dan watches as it rolls over his bottom lip, down his chin, then falls and soaks into his hoodie.

“The girl in the picture,” Phil clarifies quietly, but Dan knows. He knows what he means. “Her name was Aubrey.”

“Phil, we don’t have to talk about this…”

Phil shakes his head. There’s an almost concentrated look on his face. “She, uh…she was one of my clients. Back in Manchester.” He pulls his glasses away to rub at his eye. The one that’s not swollen and purple. “And…she—“

Dan waits. Waits for Phil to continue, for him to elaborate or give some kind of indication that this is a conversation he actually wants to be having right now. Instead, Phil takes in a slow, ragged breath and hides his face in his hands. The moment his shoulders start to shake, Dan is crawling over to his side of the couch and wrapping him in a hug. He holds him carefully - like he’s a child carrying something home that he made at school to show his mum. Like he doesn’t want it to break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi on tumblr @danisnopeonfire :p


End file.
